List of cities in Zaporizhzhia Oblast
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are 14 populated places in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine, that have been officially granted city status (Ukrainian: місто, romanized: misto) by the Verkhovna Rada, the country's parliament.[2] Settlements with more than 10,000 people are eligible for city status although the status is typically also granted to settlements of historical or regional importance.[3][4][5] As of 5 December 2001, the date of the first and only official census in the country since independence,[6][lower-alpha 1] the most populous city in the oblast was the regional capital Zaporizhzhia, with a population of 817,882 people, while the least populous city was Molochansk, with a population of 7,964 people.[7] The most recent settlement to receive city status is Enerhodar, which was granted the status by the Verkhovna Rada in 1985.[8]
From independence in 1991 until 2020, five cities in the oblast were designated as cities of regional significance (municipalities), which had self-government under city councils, while the oblast's remaining nine cities were located amongst 20 raions (districts) as cities of district significance, which are subordinated to the governments of the raions.[9][10][7] On 18 July 2020, an administrative reform abolished and merged the oblast's raions and cities of regional significance into five new, expanded raions.[11][3][12] The five raions that make up the oblast are Berdiansk, Melitopol, Polohy, Vasylivka, and Zaporizhzhia.[13][14]
After 24 February 2022, during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces occupied three cities in Polohy Raion, and all cities located in the Berdiansk, Melitopol, and Vasylivka raions, including the second and third most populous cities in the oblast, Melitopol[15] and Berdiansk,[16] with Melitopol serving as the capital of Russia's de facto occupation administration in the oblast.[17] As of 3 July 2024, 10 cities are occupied by Russian forces,[18] while two frontline cities (Huliaipole and Orikhiv) have been nearly destroyed by fighting and Russian shelling.[19][20]