Crimea is surrounded almost entirely by the Black Sea. It is connected to Ukraine鈥檚 Kherson Oblast in the North by the Isthmus of Perekop. The Kerch Strait separates Crimea from Russia. In the ancient world the peninsula was known as Tauris. Crimea covers an area of 10,000 sq miles/26,000 sq km, about the same size of the state of Massachusetts. Crimea is 200 miles/322 km from Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics took place. The first time Russia annexed Crimea聽was under Catherine the Great in 1783. In the Crimean War in 1853聽Russia fought against an allied group of Britain, France, the Austrian Empire, Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire. In 1954 the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Crimea became part of Ukraine as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In 2014 the Russian Federation annexed Crimea as part of its territory. There are 12 operating merchant seaports in Crimea according to ITF Global. The main economic activities in Crimea are agriculture and tourism. Russia鈥檚 Black Sea Fleet has been operating in Sevastopol since 1783. Crimea is the native land of the Crimean Tartars聽who are primarily Muslim. In 1944, during World War II, Stalin deported 200,000 Crimean Tartars to Central Asia and Siberia. After the fall of the Soviet Union Crimean Tartars聽started to return to the region. Today they make up 13% of the Crimean population聽and continue to grow at a rate of 0.9% annually. The overall Crimean population is consistently falling at a rate of 0.4% annually due to lower grow rate in the Russian and Ukrainian populations. Simferopol is the capital of Crimea. It was the capital of the Scythian state in the 3rd century.
Tags: Black Sea, capital of Crimea, Crimean Tartars, facts, society
Category: Facts