Ukraine is a unitary state, which is divided into administrative-territorial units of the first level - regions and cities. The history of the administrative division of Ukraine began under the Hetmanate, however, in the process of its formation, the structure of the country has undergone certain and repeated changes.
Administrative-territorial levels
Today the system of the Ukrainian administrative-territorial structure is represented by the first, second and third levels. The first level includes regions and cities with a special status. The second level, which is called basic, includes districts, cities of regional subordination and cities of republican subordination.
Urban areas are territorial units that do not form their own governing bodies.
The third level (primary) includes a number of cities of district significance, which are mostly subordinate to the city councils of regional cities, urban-type settlements, simple townships and villages. The structure of modern Ukraine includes 24 regions and 2 cities with a special status, which are administrative-territorial units of the first level. Oblasts are subdivided into a certain number of districts and cities of republican or regional subordination, which belong to units of the second (basic) level. The rest of the Ukrainian cities, towns and villages are united by the third level of administrative-territorial division.
Regions of Ukraine
Odessa region and its center - the city of Odessa, is the largest region on the territory of Ukraine, while its population is far from being the largest. There are not very many districts and status cities in it - according to these parameters, it was overtaken by Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Lvov and Donetsk regions. Kharkiv and Vinnitsa regions distinguished themselves with the greatest number of districts, where there are 27 of them. The most populated region with the largest number of status cities is Donetsk region.
Each of the Ukrainian administrative-territorial units of the first level has its own emblem.
However, Ukraine did not always have such a division. After its entry into the USSR in 1922, 53 districts were formed on its territory, however, after the separation of the Moldavian ASSR from the Ukrainian SSR, the provincial division was canceled. In 1926, the Ukrainian SSR had 41 districts in its composition, and ten years later the district division replaced the district division, and the Ukrainian SSR was divided into 7 regions. In the future, the number of Ukrainian regions, into which the territory of the country was divided, changed several times - the old regions were united, changed their names and formed new regions on the newly annexed lands in Ukraine.
