Kirovohrad Oblast

The area of the province is 24,600 square kilometres (9,500 sq mi).

The city of Dobrovelychkivka is the geographical center of Ukraine.

In the 1800s, majority of the landed was owned by the noble Skarzynski family.^[5] They played a large role in the development of the region. An emphasis was placed on the development of its agriculture and the Skarzynskis opened a school in Migeya dedicated to this.^[6]

The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian SSR on January 10, 1939 out of the northern raions of Mykolaiv Oblast. Before establishment, its territory was part of Kherson Governorate (most of it) and Podolia Governorate (smaller portion) until 1925. Earlier before occupation of Ukraine in 1920s, in 1918 there were plans to introduce own Ukrainian administrative territorial division with territory of modern Kirovohrad Oblast being split between lands of Nyz (Lower land), Pobozhia (Boh land), and Cherkasy.

In 1954, the oblast lost some raions to the newly created Cherkasy Oblast, but later that year received its western raions from the Odesa Oblast.

Between 1939 and 2016, the oblast administrative center, Kropyvnytskyi, was called Kirovohrad and was named after the First Secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Sergei Kirov.^[7] Due to decommunization laws (on 14 July 2016) the name of the city was changed to Kropyvnytskyi.^[7] Kirovohrad Oblast was not renamed because as such it is mentioned in the Constitution of Ukraine, and the Oblast can only be renamed by a constitutional amendment by the Verkhovna Rada.^[8]

On 20 June 2018, the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government of the Ukrainian parliament backed the proposal to rename Kirovohrad Oblast to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast.^[9] In February 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared constitutional the bill on renaming Kirovohrad Oblast to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast.^[10][11] The renaming was supported by the local Oblast Council in March 2021.^[12][13] The process then stalled in the parliament, with the oblast council asking the Verkhovna Rada to speed up the process in September 2022.^[14]

The following sites were nominated for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine:

• Khutir Nadiia, outskirts of Mykolaivka village

The oblast also has a number of archaeological sites, such as Nebelivka site and Melgunov Kurgan.

Raions

No.	Name	Coat of arms	Population, (2020).	Area, km²	Density, per km²	Administrative center	Map	Subdivisions
1	Holovanivsk		122,952	4,244	28.97	Holovanivsk		10 hromadas
2	Kropyvnytskyi		442,997	9,709	45.62	Kropyvnytskyi		17 hromadas
3	Novoukrainka		140,539	5,196	27	Novoukrainka		13 hromadas
4	Oleksandriia		226,721	5,405	41.94	Oleksandriia		9 hromadas

Before the July 2020 reform, Kirovohrad Oblast was administratively subdivided into 21 raions (districts) as well as 4 cities (municipalities) which were directly subordinate to the oblast government: Oleksandriia, Svitlovodsk, Znamianka, and the administrative center of the oblast, Kropyvnytskyi.

Language

According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, Ukrainian was the mother tongue of 88.9% of the population, for 10.0% it was Russian, and for 1.1% it was another language.

According to a survey "Is the language (ir)relevant?" (Ukrainian: "Мова (не) на часі?"), which took place in Kirovohrad Oblast from 12 to 22 October 2023, 96.7% of respondents named Ukrainian as their mother tongue, while 2.6% named Russian as their mother tongue. In everyday life, 66.4% of respondents spoke Ukrainian, 29.4% spoke Surzhyk, and 3.4% spoke Russian.^[15]

Age structure

0-14 years: 14.3% (male 72,646/female 68,970)

15-64 years: 68.7% (male 324,698/female 355,058)

65 years and over: 17.0% (male 55,718/female 111,666) (2013 official)

Median age

total: 41.2 years

male: 37.7 years

female: 44.5 years (2013 official)

Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after their capital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (Ukrainian: обласний центр, translit. oblasnyi tsentr). The name of each oblast is a relative adjective, formed by adding a feminine suffix to the name of the respective center city: Kirovohrad was the former name of the center of the Kirovohrads’ka oblast’ (Kirovohrad 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 Kirovohrad Oblast, Kirovohradshchyna.

• 
  Hospital in Novomyrhorod
• 
  Former hospital in Nova Praha
• 
  Khutir Nadiia museum
• 
  Cathedral of Nativity of Mary in Kropyvnytskyi
• 
  Near Inhul River
• 
  Panski Hory landscape reserve
• 
  Confluence of Berezivka and Inhul rivers
• 
  Black Forest

• Administrative divisions of Ukraine

• "Main". Official web-site of the Kirovohrad Oblast State Administration (in Ukrainian). Archived from the original on 13 August 2006. Retrieved 7 April 2014.