What is Ukraine’s geographical location, and what natural resources and industry does it possess?
Ukraine is located in southeastern Europe. Its longest land border, in the east and north, is with Russia; another northern neighbor is Belarus, a post-Soviet state and Russia's close ally.
Ukraine's western neighbors are Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova. All of them, except Moldova, are now members of the European Union and NATO; Ukraine is thus “sandwiched” between Russia and the member countries of the Western political and military alliance. In the south, Ukrainian territory is washed by the Black Sea, which links Ukraine to Turkey and Bulgaria and, beyond the Straits, to the Mediterranean world. Although lacking a common land border with Ukraine, these Black Sea neighbors have played an important role in Ukrainian history.Ukraine is Europe's second-largest country after Russia. Spanning 603,700 square kilometers, or 233,100 square miles (including the Crimea), it is a bit larger than France and approximately the size of Germany and Great Britain combined. Ukraine's terrain consists almost entirely of vast plains well suited for agricultural cultivation, with higher elevations only along the far edges of Ukrainian territory: the Carpathians in the west and the more impressive Crimean Mountains along the southern tip of the Crimean Peninsula. The most important Ukrainian river is the Dnipro (Dnieper), which traverses the entire country before emptying into the Black Sea.
For centuries Ukraine's most valuable resource was the large “black-earth” belt of humus-rich soil in the Dnipro basin. Dubbed the “breadbasket of Europe," the Ukrainian lands controlled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and, later, the Russian Empire became a major area of commercial agriculture and a leading producer of grain and sugar beets. With the arrival of modern industry in the nineteenth century, rich deposits of coal and iron ore in eastern Ukraine led to the growth of mining and steel production, particularly in the Donbas.
During the twentieth century, the mighty Ukrainian rivers became major sources of hydroelectric power, and a number of nuclear power stations were built, including in Chernobyl, situated just north of Kyiv.Ukraine's once-important deposits of oil and gas were largely exhausted by the 1970s, making the republic a net importer of these fuels. However, in recent decades the arrival of new extraction technologies rejuvenated this sector and also led to the discovery of significant offshore liquefied gas deposits in the Black Sea, off the Crimean coast. The status of these natural riches is now uncertain because of Russia's annexation of the peninsula.
Some sectors of the Ukrainian economy weathered relatively well the crash triggered by the collapse of the Soviet economic system. The country remains among the world's leading producers of steel, cast iron, and pipes, as well as mineral fertilizers. Building on its Soviet legacy of developed military industry, Ukraine is still among the world's top 10 arms traders. However, other sectors did not fare so well in the new climate of global competition. Ukraine's once- thriving aircraft industry is nearly extinct, and production of an indigenous Ukrainian car brand, Zaporozhets (later, Tavriia and Slavuta), ceased in 2011. Ukrainian machine building is aimed primarily at Russia and other post-Soviet states because it would not be competitive in Western markets.
Agriculture, the traditional mainstay of Ukraine's economy, is still experiencing the pains of a slow and difficult transition from Soviet- era collective farms to market-oriented commercial agriculture. At the same time, however, the country has developed a modern service industry based to a large degree on the small-business model. The information technology sector is booming as well. Tourism is becoming an increasingly important part of the Ukrainian economy, especially in the western regions with their rich architectural heritage and new mountain resorts.