Ukraine: Map & History

History

Evidence for the earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe comes from 1.4 million-year-old stone tools from Korolevo, in western Ukraine. Settlement by modern humans in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BC, with evidence of the Gravettian culture in the Crimean Mountains. By 4,500 BC, the Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture was flourishing in wide areas of modern Ukraine, including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper-Dniester region. Ukraine is a probable location for the first domestication of the horse. The Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of Ukraine and southern Russia as the linguistic homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Economy

In 2021, agriculture was the biggest sector of the economy. Ukraine is one of the world's largest wheat exporters. It remains among the poorest countries in Europe with the lowest nominal GDP per capita. Despite improvements, as in Moldova corruption in Ukraine remains an obstacle to joining the EU; the country was rated 104th out of 181 in the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025. In 2021, Ukraine's GDP per capita by purchasing power parity was just over $14,000. Despite supplying emergency financial support, the IMF expected the economy to shrink considerably by 35% in 2022 due to the Russo-Ukrainian war. One 2022 estimate was that post-war reconstruction costs might reach half a trillion dollars.

Culture

Ukrainian customs are heavily influenced by Orthodox Christianity, the dominant religion in the country. Gender roles also tend to be more traditional, and grandparents play a greater role in bringing up children, than in the West. The culture of Ukraine has also been influenced by its eastern and western neighbours, reflected in its architecture, music and art.

The Communist era had quite a strong effect on the art and writing of Ukraine. In 1932, Stalin made socialist realism state policy in the Soviet Union when he promulgated the decree "On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organisations". This greatly stifled creativity. During the 1980s glasnost (openness) was introduced and Soviet artists and writers again became free to express themselves as they wanted.

Geography

Ukraine is the second-largest European country, after Russia, and the largest country entirely in Europe. Lying between latitudes 44° and 53° N, and longitudes 22° and 41° E., it is mostly in the East European Plain. Ukraine covers an area of 603,550 square kilometres (233,030 sq mi), with a coastline of 2,782 kilometres (1,729 mi).

The landscape of Ukraine consists mostly of fertile steppes (plains with few trees) and plateaus, crossed by rivers such as the Dnieper, Seversky Donets, Dniester and the Southern Bug as they flow south into the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov.