Zakarpattya region

Zakarpattya region is located in the west of Ukraine, it is a part of the Carpathian area, in the south it borders with Romania, south-west – Hungary, west - Slovakia and north-west - Poland, the region is a kind of Ukrainian "window to Europe".

Since ancient times the territory of Zakarpattya was a "bridge" between North and South, Western and Eastern Europe. The region was founded on January 22, 1946.

The territory of the region is 12.8 thousand square kilometers or 2.1% of Ukraine.

The population is about 1.25 million people or 2.6% of Ukrainian population, including urban population – 37.1% and rural – 62.9%.

The most of the population live in the Transcarpathian lowland, which occupies about 20% of the region, in the mountain villages live the fifth of the population.

Zakarpattya region is multinational; here are the representatives of over 70 nationalities, including Ukrainians (80.5%), Hungarians (12.1%), Romanians (2.6%), Russians (2.5%), Gypsies (1.1%), Slovaks (0.5%), Germans (0.3%) and others.

The administrative-territorial division of the region: 13 administrative districts, 10 cities, including 3 cities of regional subordination (Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, Hust), 20 towns and 579 villages. The administrative center is the city of Uzhgorod.

In the southwestern part of the region is situated the Transcarpathian lowland, which is the part of Middle-Danubian lowland, slightly sloping from the mountains to the valley of Tisa river.

In the region there are 9429 rivers and streams, of which 147 rivers are longer than 10 km each. The largest of them is the Tisa, the left tributary of the Danube, which was formed in result of the merger of White and Black Tisa.

All major rivers flow either into Tisa River - Borzhava, Tereblya, Rika, Teresva, or into Bodrog river (in Slovakia) - Uzh, Latoritsa. There 137 natural lakes in the region, mostly of glacial origin, the largest and deepest lake in Zakarpattya is Synevir.

The climate is temperate continental with a predominant influence of the Atlantic.

The summer on the plain is long and hot, and continues up to 135 days, in the mountains on the altitude of 600 m - lasts less than 70 days. The winter is relatively mild, its character depends on the year and height, the thaws are frequent, precipitations are extremely uneven and are associated with high-altitude zone.

The soils in Zakarpattya region are very diverse, each relief zone is characterized with its own group of soils, but they all belong to the mixed brown-podzolic soils. In the foothills and mountains - brown mountain-forest and brown meadow soils, on the lowlands - sod-podzolic and brown-podzolic soils.

Minerals in Zakarpattya are represented with the very rich deposits of lead-zinc and aluminum ores, gold.

In the south of the region (Solotvyno), there is a large deposit of rock salt, which is also famous for the salt mines located at various depths (from 150 to 500m) and curative muds.

The deposits of dolomite, tuff, perlite, mineral paints, bentonitic clay, limestone are of industrial importance. In Zakarpattya region there are more than 340 sources of mineral waters, the most famous of which are Svaliava and Polyana Kvasova.