Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast, also referred to as Kharkivshchyna, is an oblast (province) in eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west, Sumy Oblast to the north-west and Russia's Belgorod Oblast to the north. The area of Kharkiv Oblast is , corresponding to 5.2% of the total territory of Ukraine. The oblast is the third-most populous province of Ukraine, with a population of 2,598,961 in 2021, more than half (1.42 million) of whom live in the city of Kharkiv, the oblast's administrative center. While the Russian language is primarily spoken in the cities of Kharkiv oblast, elsewhere in the oblast most inhabitants speak Ukrainian. Geography The oblast borders Russia (Belgorod Oblast) to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west. History During the Soviet administrative reform of 1923–1929, in 1925, the Kharkov Governorate was abolished leaving its five okruhas: Okhtyrka (originally Bohodukhiv), Izyum, Kupyansk, Sumy, and Kharkiv. Introduced in the Soviet Union in 1923, a similar subdivisions existed in Ukraine back in 1918. In 1930 all okruhas were also abolished with raions becoming the first level of subdivision of Ukraine until 1932.