Spanning 20,900 square kilometres (8,100 sq mi), Cherkasy Oblast is the 18th largest oblast of Ukraine, comprising about 3.5% of the area of the country. The south flowingDnieper River with the hilly western bank and the plain eastern bank divides the oblast into two unequal parts. The larger western part belongs to theDnieper Upland. The low-lying eastern part of the oblast used to be subject to the frequent Dnieperflooding before the flow of the river became controlled by multipledams ofHydroelectric Power Plants constructed along the river in the 20th century.
Archaeological discoveries have shown that people have inhabited the valley of the Dnieper River since time immemorial. The oldest objects excavated on the territory of the region date back to theStone Age – thePalaeolithic period.
The current estimated population is 1,335,064 (as of 2006).
According to the2001 Ukrainian census, the oblast's population is almost equally divided between the urban and rural areas (53.7% and 46.3%, respectively).[8] The demographic situation in this largely agricultural territory is somewhat complicated bypopulation ageing.[9]
According to the2001 Ukrainian census,Ukrainian was the native language for over 92% of Cherkasy Oblast's population: it was the dominant language in all of the city, town, and village councils of the oblast.
Due to theRussification of Ukraine during the Soviet era, the share of Ukrainian speakers in the population of Cherkasy Oblast gradually decreased, while the share of Russian speakers increased.[12] Native language of the population of Cherkasy Oblast according to the results of population censuses:[13][14][15][16][17][18]
Ukrainian is the only official language on the whole territory of Cherkasy Oblast.[20]
According to a poll conducted byRating from 16 November to 10 December 2018 as part of the project «Portraits of Regions», 85% of the residents of Cherkasy Oblast believed that the Ukrainian language should be the only state language on the entire territory of Ukraine. 8% believed that Ukrainian should be the only state language, while Russian should be the second official language in some regions of the country. 4% believed that Russian should become the second state language of the country. 3% found it difficult to answer.[21]
On 4 June 2021,Cherkasy Oblast Council approved the «Comprehensive Programme for the Development and Functioning of the Ukrainian Language in All Spheres of Public Life in Cherkasy Oblast for 2021—2025», the main objective of which is to strengthen the positions of the Ukrainian language in various spheres of public life in the oblast.[22]
According to the research of theContent Analysis Centre, conducted from 15 August to 15 September 2024, the topic of which was the ratio of Ukrainian and Russian languages in the Ukrainian segment ofsocial media, 84.3% of posts from Cherkasy Oblast were written in Ukrainian (80.3% in 2023, 75.9% in 2022, 26.7% in 2020), while 15.7% were written in Russian (19.7% in 2023, 24.1% in 2022, 73.3% in 2020).[23][24]
After Ukraine declared independence in 1991, Cherkasy Oblast, as well as Ukraine as a whole, experienced a gradualUkrainization of the education system, which had beenRussified[25] during the Soviet era. Dynamics of the ratio of thelanguages of instruction in general secondary education institutions in Cherkasy Oblast:[26][27][28][29][30][31][32]
According to theState Statistics Service of Ukraine, in the 2023—2024 school year, all 114,960 pupils in general secondary education institutions in Cherkasy Oblast were studying in classes whereUkrainian was the language of instruction.[33]
The local administration of the oblast is controlled by the Cherkasy Oblast Rada. The governor of the oblast is the Cherkasy Oblast Rada speaker, appointed by thePresident of Ukraine.
Since July 2020, Cherkasy Oblast consists of four raions:
The region has 16 populated places designated as cities (towns). The only one with the population over 100 thousand isCherkasy.Uman andSmila are in the range between 80 and 90 thousands, and all others are below 30 thousands.
The industry is mainly concentrated inCherkasy, the oblast's capital and the largest city. Achemical industry was developed in the city in late 1960s in addition to machine building, furniture making and agricultural processing.
Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after theircapital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (Ukrainian:обласний центр,romanized: oblasnyi tsentr). The name of each oblast is arelativeadjective, formed by adding a femininesuffix to the name of respective center city:Cherkasy is the center of theCherkaska oblast (Cherkasy Oblast). Most oblasts are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna", as is the case with the Cherkasy Oblast,Cherkashchyna.
^Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, "Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in Soviet Bilingual Education Policy, 1934-1980," American Political Science Review 78 (December 1984): 1019-1039.
^«Статистичний щорічник України за 1998 рік» — К., 1999."Джерело".pics.livejournal.com. Retrieved2024-12-26.
(1972)Історіа міст і сіл Української CCP - Черкаська область (History of Towns and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR - Cherkasy Oblast), Kyiv.(in Ukrainian)
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