- About Ukraine
- The Name of the State
- Geographic Situation
- The Land
- Natural Resources
- The Seas and Inland Waters
- The Climate
- The Flora
- The Fauna
- Administrative and Territorial Organization
- The Population
- Kyiv
- Folk art from Ukraine
- Love Ukraine
- Ivano-Frankivsk region
- Hutsuliya
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Several tectonic structures are distinguished in the southwestern part of East European platform: Ukrainian shield, Volyno-Podilska slab, Volynska and Dniprovsko-Donetska cavities and others. Formation of Ukrainian Carpathians is still going on therefore these zones are likely to have earthquakes approximately every 400 years.
The coal base of Ukraine is Donbas (area — more than 50 thousand sq. km) and the stocks are estimated to be 109 billion ton, with layers of 0,6–1,2 m. Oil and natural gas are concentrated in the Dniprovsko-Donetskyy (about 80%) and Prychornomorsko-Krymskyy regions and in Carpathian oil and gas province. Ukraine’s own needs of oil are covered for 10–15% and for 25% of gas.
There are considerable resource of iron and other ores in different regions of Ukraine.
Ukraine is one of the natural resource leaders in Europe and the world. Such resources as mountain wax, granite, graphite are among the richest. For ages Ukraine has been a producer of various salts and has a rich base for metallurgical, porcelain, chemical industries, for production of ceramics and building materials, sources of precious and semiprecious stones. Ukraine is famous for its mineral water treatments (in Myrgorod, Svaliyava, Truskavets, Feodosya and others) and medicinal mud.
The Soil
There are nearly 40 types and subtypes of soils in Ukraine. Almost 45% of the whole area is fertile farming land.
Ukrainian soil
34% of Ukrainian land is formed by mixed zones of forests and plains (steppe), where the gray forest soil is widespread. In the zone of plains, which forms 40% of all state land, the soil coverage is relatively even and is dominated by chornozem (the black soil) — the most fertile in the world and covering two thirds of Ukraine.
The area around the rivers Dnipro and Dnister is the only place in the world where the width of the so-called “sweet” black soil line reaches 500 km. This soil is exceptional in providing very high natural quality of the harvests and belongs to the national wealth. There are some other types of soils in different areas of Ukraine (including the nutrient-rich riverbed soils) but in much lesser amounts. In Ukrainian Carpathians the soils vary with altitude.
