Ukraine Ukrainian transliterated Ukrayina, Russian Crimean Tatar Ukraina) is a country in the East of Europe. It has an area of making it the largest contiguous country on the European continent. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It was formerly known as the Ukraine.

Ukraine's history began with the Kievan Rus', the precursor to the East Slavs. From the 9th century the Kievan Rus' became a large and powerful nation but disintegrated in the 12th century. Ukraine was the center of the medieval living area of the East Slavs.

History
During the period of Romantic nationalism it was popular to trace the origin of the country's name back to an ancient ethnonym. After this pseudo-historical view was discarded, two main versions of the etymology emerged. Naturally, the versions have different implications from a nationalist point of view, and are also based on different possible or certain meanings of the lexeme ukraina as it occurs in historical sources.

According to one view, the term is taken to mean 'borderland' or simply 'land' (also 'in-land' or 'home-land', 'principality'), whilst in the other it is said to be derived from the old slavic word 'kraina', meaning 'country', and therefore, according to this understanding of the term, 'u-kraina' means 'in-country' or 'my-country'Until the end of the 20th century, it was common practice to refer to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" in English and such usage is still common although not considered to be appropriate or accurate.

Geography
At 603,700 square kilometres and with a coastline of 2,782 kilometres (1,729 mi), Ukraine is the world's 44th-largest country (after the Central African Republic, before Madagascar). It is the largest wholly-European country and the second largest country in Europe (after the European part of Russia, before metropolitan France).

The Ukrainian landscape consists mostly of fertile plains (or steppes) and plateaus, crossed by rivers such as the Dnieper (Dnipro), Seversky Donets, Dniester and the Southern Buh as they flow south into the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. To the southwest, the delta of the Danube forms the border with Romania. Its various regions have diverse geographic features ranging from the highlands to the lowlands. The country's only mountains are the Carpathian Mountains in the west, of which the highest is the Hora Hoverla at 2,061 metres and the Crimean Mountains on the Crimean peninsula, in the extreme south along the coast However

Ukraine also has a number of highland regions such as the Volyn-Podillia Upland (in the west) and the Near-Dnipro Upland (on the right bank of Dnieper); to the east there are the south-western spurs of the Central Russian Uplands over which runs the border with Russia. Near the Sea of Azov can be found the Donets Ridge and the Near Azov Upland. The snow melt from the mountains feeds the rivers, and natural changes in altitude form a sudden drop in elevation and create many opportunities to form waterfalls of Ukraine.

Climate
Ukraine has a mostly temperate continental climate, although a more Mediterranean climate is found on the southern Crimean coast. Precipitation is disproportionately distributed; it is highest in the west and north and lowest in the east and southeast. Western Ukraine, receives around of precipitation annually, while Crimea receives around . Winters vary from cool along the Black Sea to cold farther inland.

Economy
In Soviet times, the economy of Ukraine was the second largest in the Soviet Union, being an important industrial and agricultural component of the country's planned economy. With the collapse of the Soviet system, the country moved from a planned economy to a market economy. The transition process was difficult for the majority of the population which plunged into poverty.

Ukraine's economy contracted severely following the years after the Soviet collapse. Day to day life for the average person living in Ukraine was a struggle. A significant number of citizens in rural Ukraine survived by growing their own food, often working two or more jobs and buying the basic necessities through the barter economy.

In 1991, the government liberalized most prices to combat widespread product shortages, and was successful in overcoming the problem. At the same time, the government continued to subsidize state-run industries and agriculture by uncovered monetary emission. The loose monetary policies of the early 1990s pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels. For the year 1993, Ukraine holds the world record for inflation in one calendar year.Those living on fixed incomes suffered the most.