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Central Ukraine (Ukrainian: Центральна Україна, Tsentralna Ukrayina) consists of historic regions of left-bank Ukraine and right-bank Ukraine that reference to the Dnieper river. It is situated away from the Black Sea Littoral North and a midstream of Dnieper river and its basin.
Contents
Territory
The territory is often associated with the 17th century Cossack Hetmanate.
It mostly corresponds to:
Sometimes, a separate region of northern Ukraine is identified based on Severia and eastern Polissya, while Kirovohrad region is associated with the southern Ukraine and Black Sea Littoral.
Unlike the big cities of the Ukrainian south and east, the cities of the central Ukraine are among the oldest on the continent, among which are: Kiev, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Chernihiv. Also in contrast to the southeastern portion of the country, the region is more agricultural with extensive grain and sunflower fields in the heart of Ukraine.
Surzhyk, a term for mixed Russian-Ukrainian dialects, is commonly spoken throughout Central Ukraine, though, according to RATING and Research & Branding Group, most of the people self-identify as Ukrainian speakers. In the major cities of Central Ukraine, Russian is the primary spoken language.
The average views of the regions inhabitants on sensitive issues in current Ukraine such as the Russian language, Joseph Stalin and Ukrainian nationalism tends not to be so extreme as in Western Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine and Southern Ukraine.
In a poll conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in the first half of February 2014, only 5.4% of polled in Central Ukraine believed "Ukraine and Russia must unite into a single state", whereas nationwide this percentage was 12.5.
Elections in the Central Ukrainian oblasts (provinces) have historically been competitive between pro-Russian and pro-Western candidates. However, since the 2004 Orange Revolution, Central Ukrainian voters have started to lean toward more pro-Western parties (Our Ukraine, Batkivshchyna) and presidential candidates (Viktor Yuschenko and Yulia Tymoshenko).
Oblasts (Administrative provinces)
Note that sometimes Khmelnytskyi Oblast is considered a part of the Central Ukraine as it is mostly lies within the western Podillya.