ONE LAND · 15 ATLASES

History of Ukraine in maps

Ukraine as it appears in 15 interactive history atlases, from 264 BC to 2015: Scythia & Sarmatia, Kievan Rus, Ukraine, the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Union. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

What was Ukraine before it was Ukraine? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History atlases — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.

Scythia & Sarmatia (mod. Ukraine) · Ancient Rome

Scythia and Sarmatia: the steppe corridor beyond every Roman category, ringed with Greek grain ports (Olbia, Chersonesus) that Rome garrisoned as clients. Every mounted people in this atlas — Sarmatians, Goths, Huns — crossed this land southwestward. When its gates opened in 370, the fifth century began (Ch. 10).

ANCIENT ROME: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine · Norse and Aztecs

NORSE AND AZTECS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

The Rus’ & Cuman lands (mod. Ukraine) · Crusades

The Orthodox principalities of the Rus’ and the steppe of the Cuman nomads lay beyond the crusaders’ Mediterranean world — but not beyond its age. Kyiv, the great city of the Rus’, fell to the Mongols in December 1240, two decades after the Cumans had fled west with news of an enemy no one could stop; the cataclysm that would destroy Baghdad’s caliphate in 1258 thus overran Orthodox Europe first. Crusading brushed this world only at its edges — popes preached against the pagan Cumans, and the Baltic crusades pressed on the Rus’ from the north-west — but here the thirteenth century belonged to the horsemen of the steppe, not the cross.

CRUSADES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Kievan Rus (mod. Ukraine) · Mongol Empire

Kievan Rus’s southern heart — and the Golden Horde’s steppe. Kiev, the mother of Rus cities, refused surrender and was stormed in December 1240; a papal envoy counted two hundred houses standing six years later. The Pontic steppe stayed under direct Horde rule for generations, and the region’s history split from Europe’s along this map’s hatched belt.

MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine (Russian and Habsburg empires) · Industrial Revolution

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine · Age of Revolutions

AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia

The second most populous Soviet republic and the home of Chernobyl. Its parliament declared independence on 24 August 1991, and on 1 December more than 90% of voters confirmed it, with majorities in every region, the vote that convinced Yeltsin no Union was possible without Ukraine. It inherited Crimea, transferred to it in 1954, a large Soviet nuclear arsenal that it gave up by 1996, and a deep economic depression.

MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine · Russian Revolution

The revolution’s central battleground and central tragedy. Rich in grain and open on the plain, Ukraine was fought over by Rada, Germans, Hetman, Directory, Whites, Poles, Makhno’s anarchists and Reds — Kiev changed hands more than a dozen times. It suffered the era’s worst pogroms (perhaps 100,000 Jews murdered) and, unlike Finland or Poland, was reconquered — becoming a founding Soviet republic in 1922.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine (Russian Empire) · WWI

Ukraine declared independence in the empire’s collapse — then became the war’s eastern prize: occupied by Germany in 1918 as the “bread peace” granary (Ch. 11), fought over by Reds, Whites, Poles and its own republics until 1921. Between Brest-Litovsk and the Soviet victory, Kyiv changed hands more than a dozen times.

WWI: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

The Ukrainian SSR · Stalin’s Soviet Union

Soviet Ukraine was the Union’s granary and second industrial region, and it suffered more than almost any republic under Stalin. Its farms were collectivised against fierce resistance, and the famine of 1932–33, the Holodomor, killed roughly 3.5 to 5 million of its people. Its party and intellectuals were purged as nationalists, its western lands were annexed from Poland in 1939, and it was occupied by Germany in 1941–44. An insurgency fought Soviet rule in its west until the early 1950s.

STALIN’S SOVIET UNION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Soviet Ukraine · Road to WW2

ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine · WW2

Soviet Ukraine was the war’s central killing ground: overrun in 1941, site of Babi Yar and the Holocaust by bullets, fought over twice, and left with staggering losses. Its wartime experience — between two totalitarianisms — is key to understanding its history since.

WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ukraine · Cold War

The second Soviet republic — a quarter of the union’s people and industry, the breadbasket, and host to Chernobyl, whose lies helped kill the system (Ch. 11). Its 90% independence vote of 1 December 1991 made the USSR unrevivable arithmetic. Every post-Cold-War European crisis has run through the questions this map leaves open around it.

COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Soviet Union (Ukraine) · Feminism and the Tunisian Revolution

FEMINISM AND THE TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Soviet Ukraine · Refugee crises

Soviet Ukraine absorbed the eastern half of pre-war Poland, including Lwów, which became Lviv. Most of its Poles left for Poland in 1944–46, about 482,000 Ukrainians arrived from Poland, and a nationalist insurgency fought on into the 1950s. Ukrainian DPs in the West were among those who most firmly refused repatriation, and many resettled in Canada, the United States and Australia.

REFUGEE CRISES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Related

• History of Uganda PREVIOUS
• History of the United Arab Emirates NEXT
• Ancient Rome timeline and maps
• Norse and Aztecs timeline and maps
• Crusades timeline and maps
• Mongol Empire timeline and maps
• Industrial Revolution timeline and maps
• Age of Revolutions timeline and maps