The Chernivtsi region (Черніветська область, Chernivets’ka oblast’ in Ukrainian) lies in southwestern Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova. It has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad plain situated between the Dnister and Prut rivers.

The Chernivtsi region, known by its ethnographic name Northern Bukovina, was created in 1940 (after being taken from Romania by Soviet Union, as an outcome of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). It has a population (as of 2004-05-01) of 913,275 (with an important Romanian minority) and spans 8,100 km�.

Geographically/historically, the region is composed of northeren Bukovina, northern half of the Chotin (Hotin) county of Bessarabia, and the Herta district, which prior to 1940 was part of the Dorohoi (presently Botosani) county of Romania.

Northern Bukovina, together with the southern Bukovina (most of the Suceava county of Romania) were cedeed in 1775 by the Ottoman empire from the principality of Moldova to Austria. There it was first part of Galitsia, then after the 1848 revolution, an autonomuous grand duchy. At the desintegration of Austro-Hungary in 1918, the elected representatives of Bukovina decided in Chernivtsi (Cernauti), the capital of the province, upon indisoluble union with Romania. On June 28, 1940, in accordance with the Article 3 of the additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Soviet Union ocupied from Romania Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and the Herta district. The Soviet take-over of Bukovina was motivated as a compensation for the belonging of Bessarabia from 1918 till 1940 to Romania and not to Russia/Soviet Union. The ocupation of the Herta district, which prior to that was never part of neither Austro-Hungary, nor Russian Empire, was not even mentioned in the Soviet-Nazi ageements, and was the result of simply where the Soviet troups stopped in 1940.

On August 2, 1940, out of some of the territories occupied on June 28, Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was formed, the 15th republic of the Soviet Union. The remainder of the territories were included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - the northern part formed the Chernivtsi region, the southern part was included in the Odessa region. It has been argued on why did the Soviets split the taken territories like this. In the case of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), their borders were largely preserved, and even the Soviet press before August 2, 1940 described a Moldavian SSR with all the occupied territories included. It is very possible that the sole reason for this late change of intentions was the fact that the Soviet commission that redraw the border was headed by Nikita Khrushchev, the then leader of the Ukrainian SSR, and later (1956-1964) leader of the USSR, who simply wanted more territory for Ukraine.

Unlike the Bessarabian population that was accustomed to Russian rule (it was part of the Russian Empire before 1918), the Bukovinian population has never been expecting a possible Russian attempt for take-ever, and staged many protests, without realizing that that could provoke serious Soviet reprisals. In the winter of 1940-1941 Soviet troups have opened fire on a 5000 march of civilians that were trying together to cross the border into Romanian, killing between one and two thousand of them at Biserica Alba. In June 1941 many Bukovinians, regardless of their ethnicity, were deported to Siberia. In 1944, when the Soviet troups returned to Bukovina, many fleed to Romania, and the region has been seriously depopulated.

During the Soviet times (1940-1941, 1944-1991) there has been slow but constant migration of ethnical Romanians to Moldavian SSR, where they could learn in schools and universities in Moldavian/Romanian language, unlike in the Chernivtsi region, and of Ukrainians from the nearby regions of Ukraine. Many ethnical Romanians/Moldavians are to this date officially registered as Russians or Ukrainins, a legacy of the former USSR.

It must be noted that there was always an Ukrainian minority in Bukovina: in 1775 Ukrainins (Ruthenians) and Polish in Bukovina (including the south) were ten thousand-strong (out of 75 000 total), in 1918 as a result of migration from Galitsia, there were approximately 200 000 Ukrainians, out of a total of 730 000. Before 1940 there were also substantial Polish, German and Jewish communities, each over 50 000-strong.

Presently, the population of the Chernivtsi region is approximately 920 000, of which almost 70% are Ukrainians, and only 299 000 are Romanian and Moldavian (again, as a legacy of Soviet period, there still exists a formal distinction between people which in ducuments are registered Romanians or Moldavians, even sometimes members of the same family). In the Herta district, the Romanian population is over 95%, while in the city of Chernivtsi (Cernauti), only 29 000 of the 250 000 are Romanians, the rest being mostly Ukrainians. However, there has never been in the recent history any ethnical incident.

Subdivisions of Ukraine
oblasts:	Cherkas'ka | Chernihivs'ka | Chernivets'ka | Dnipropetrovs'ka | Donets'ka | Ivano-Frankivs'ka | Kharkivs'ka | Khersons'ka | Khmel'nyts'ka | Kirovohrads'ka | Kyivs'ka | Luhans'ka | L'vivs'ka | Mykolayivs'ka | Odes'ka | Poltavs'ka | Rivnens'ka | Sums'ka | Ternopil's'ka | Vinnyts'ka | Volyns'ka | Zakarpats'ka | Zaporiz'ka | Zhytomyrs'ka
autonomous republic:	Crimea
cities with special status:	Kyiv | Sevastopol

de:Oblast Czernowitz es:Chernivtsi (regi�n) uk:Черніветська область