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As of January 2021, the estimated total population of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol was at 2,416,856 (Republic of Crimea: 1,903,707, Sevastopol: 513,149). [1] This is up from the 2001 Ukrainian Census figure, which was 2,376,000 (Autonomous Republic of Crimea: 2,033,700, Sevastopol: 342,451), [2] and the local census conducted by Russia in December 2014, which found 2,248,400 people (Republic of Crimea: 1,889,485, Sevastopol: 395,000). [3]
The Crimean interior has been ethnically diverse throughout its recorded history, changing hands numerous times, while the south coast was held continuously for most of the last two millennia by various Roman (and Eastern Roman) states. The interior was dominated by a succession of Scytho-Sarmatian, Gothic, Hunnic, Turkic, Mongol and Slavic conquests. Its south coast was Greek speaking first as Greek colonies (7th or 6th century BC and following), then under the Bosporan Kingdom (480 BC - 63 BC), Romans (47 BC -330 AD) and their successor states, the Byzantine Empire (330 AD - 1204 AD), the Empire of Trebizond (1204 AD - 1461 AD), and the independent Principality of Theodoro (1461 AD - 1475 AD). In 1475 the region was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. During the late Middle Ages a few coastal cities were ruled by Italian city states. A number of Englishmen, fleeing England after the Norman Conquest, were said to have settled in Crimea with the Byzantine Emperor’s permission, and comprised a majority of his Varangian Guard until the Empire’s collapse. [4]
The Crimean Tatars emerged as a Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to Crimea in the early modern period, during the lifetime of the Crimean Khanate, and by the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in 1783, they formed the clear majority of Crimean population. The colonization "New Russia" (the Novorossiysk Governorate, of which the later Taurida Governorate formed a part) at the end of the 18th century was led by Prince Grigori Potemkin who was granted the powers of an absolute ruler over the area by Catherine the Great. The lands were generously given to the Russian dvoryanstvo (nobility), and the enserfed peasantry mostly from Ukraine and fewer from Russia were transferred to cultivate what was a sparsely populated steppe. Catherine the Great also invited European settlers to these newly conquered lands: Crimea Germans, Poles in Russia, Italians of Crimea, and others. Crimea is geographically and demographically divided into three regions, the steppe interior, the mountains, and the coast. The Tatars were the predominant portion of the population in the mountainous area and about half of the steppe population, while Russians were concentrated most heavily in the Feodosiya district. Germans and settled in the Crimea at the beginning of the 19th century, receiving a large allotment and fertile land. Wealthy colonists later bought substantial portions of land, mainly in Perekopsky and Yevpatoria districts.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Italian emigration to the Crimea came from various Italian regions (Liguria, Campania, Apulia), with immigrants settling mainly in the coastal cities of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, as well as in Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sevastopol, Mariupol, Berdiansk and Taganrog. With the October Revolution of 1917, with which the Russian Empire became the Soviet Union, a bitter period began for minorities in Russia. Italians of Crimea therefore faced much repression. Between 1936 and 1938, during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, many Italians were accused of espionage and were arrested, tortured, deported or executed. The few survivors were allowed to return to Kerch in the 1950s and 1960s during Nikita Khrushchev's administration. The descendants of the surviving Italians of Crimea currently account for c. 300 [5] people, mainly residing in Kerch.
By the 1897 Russian Empire Census, Crimean Tatars continued to form a slight plurality (35%) of Crimea's still largely rural population, but there were large numbers of Russians (33%) and Ukrainians (11%), as well as smaller numbers of Germans, Jews (including Krymchaks and Crimean Karaites), Bulgarians, Belarusians, Turks, Armenians, Greeks and Roma (gypsies).
The upheavals and ethnic cleansing of the 20th century vastly changed Crimea's ethnic composition. In 1944, 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea to Central Asia and Siberia, along with 70,000 Greeks and 14,000 Bulgarians and other nationalities.[ why? ] [6] [7] By the latter 20th century, Russians and Ukrainians made up almost the entire population. However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, exiled Crimean Tatars began returning to their homeland and accounted for 10% of the population by the beginning of the 21st century.
Crimean Gothic, an East Germanic language, became extinct around the 18th century, while the Crimean Goths diffused into other ethnicities much earlier on. Old English was also spoken by settlers from England, who were eventually absorbed into the Tatar population. According to Ukraine's 2001 census, the ethnic makeup of Crimea's population consisted primarily of the following self-reported groups: Russians (1.450 million, 60.4%), Ukrainians (576,600; 24.0%), Crimean Tatars (258,400; 10.8%), Belarusians (25,000; 1.5%), Armenians (10,000; 0.4%), and Jews (5,500; 0.2%). [8]
| Ethnic group | 1785 census [9] | 1795 census [9] | 1816 census [9] | 1835 census [9] | 1850 census [9] | 1864 census [9] | 1897 census [10] [11] | 1926 census [12] | 1939 census [13] | 1959 census | 1970 census | 1979 census [14] | 1989 census [15] | 2001 census 1 | 2014 census 2 [16] [17] [18] [19] | 2021 census [20] | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | % | % | % | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
| Russians | 2.2% | 4.3% | 4.8% | 4.4% | 6.6% | 28.5% | 180,963 | 33.11% | 301,398 | 42.2% | 558,481 | 49.6% | 858,273 | 71.4% | 1,220,484 | 67.3% | 1,460,980 | 66.9% | 1,629,542 | 67.0% | 1,450,400 | 60.4% | 1,492,078 | 67.9% | 1,706,662 | 76.4% |
| Crimean Tatars (+ Tatars) | 84.1% | 87.6% | 85.9% | 83.5% | 77.8% | 50.3% | 194,294 | 35.55% | 179,094 | 25.1% | 218,879 | 19.4% | 5,422 | 0.2% | 38,365 | 1.6% | 258,700 | 10.8% | 277,336 | 12.6% | 284,522 | 12.7% | ||||
| Ukrainians | 1.3% | 3.6% | 3.1% | 7% | 64,703 | 11.84% | 77,405 | 10.6% | 154,123 | 13.7% | 267,659 | 22.3% | 480,733 | 26.5% | 547,336 | 25.1% | 625,919 | 25.8% | 576,600 | 24.0% | 344,515 | 15.7% | 171,160 | 7.7% | ||
| Belarusians | 2,058 | 0.38% | 3,842 | 0.5% | 6,726 | 0.6% | 21,672 | 1.8% | 39,793 | 2.2% | 45,000 (e) | 2.1% | 50,045 | 2.1% | 35,000 | 1.5% | 21,694 | 1.0% | 10,599 | 0.5% | ||||||
| Armenians | .6% | 1.3% | 1.5% | 1% | 6.5% | 8,317 | 1.52% | 10,713 | 1.5% | 12,923 | 1.1% | 3,091 | 0.2% | 2,794 | 0.1% | 10,000 | 0.4% | 11,030 | 0.5% | 9,016 | 0.4% | |||||
| Jews (+ Karaites) | 2.3% | 2.3% | 2% | 2.2% | 7% | 24,168 | 4.42% | 45,926 | 6.4% | 65,452 | 5.8% | 26,374 | 2.2% | 25,614 | 1.4% | 17,371 | 0.7% | 5,500 | 0.2% | 3,144 | 0.1% | 2,455 | 0.1% | |||
| Others | 13.7% | 3.9% | 2.1% | 5.5% | 5.4% | 7.7% | 72,089 | 13.19% | 48,257 | 2.2% | ||||||||||||||||
| Total population | 546,592 | 713,823 | 1,126,429 | 1,201,517 | 1,813,502 | 2,184,000 | 2,430,495 | 2,401,200 | 2,284,769 | 2,482,450 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1. For comparison with prior censuses the results of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol were combined 2. The 2014 percentage is based on total number responding to the question on nationality (not total population). Census breakdown is Crimean Tatars 232,340 (10.6%), Tatars 44,996 (2.1%). 3. The Russian percentage in the 1864 census includes Ukrainians. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other minorities are Black Sea Germans, Roma, Bulgarians, Poles, Azerbaijanis, Koreans, Greeks and Italians of Crimea. The number of Crimea Germans was 45,000 in 1941. [21] In 1944, 70,000 Greeks and 14,000 Bulgarians from the Crimea were deported to Central Asia and Siberia, [6] along with 200,000 Crimean Tatars and other nationalities. [7]
According to the 2001 census, 77% of Crimean inhabitants named Russian as their native language, 11.4% – Crimean Tatar, and 10.1% – Ukrainian. [22] Of the Ukrainians in Crimea, 40% gave Ukrainian as their native language, with 60% identifying as ethnic Ukrainians while giving Russian as their primary language. 93% of Crimean Tatars gave Crimean Tatar as their native language, 6% were Russophone. [23] In 2013, however, the Crimean Tatar language was estimated to be on the brink of extinction, being taught in Crimea only in around 15 schools at that point of time. Turkey has provided the greatest support to Ukraine, which has been unable to resolve the problem of education in the mother tongue in Crimea, by bringing the schools to a modern state. [24] Ukrainian was until 2014 the single official state language countrywide, but in Crimea government business was carried out mainly in Russian. Attempts to expand the usage of Ukrainian in education and government affairs have been less successful in Crimea than in other areas of the nation. [25]
Currently two thirds of migrants into Crimea are from other regions of Ukraine; every fifth migrant is from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and every 40th from outside of it. Three quarters of those leaving Crimea move to other areas in Ukraine. Every 20th migrates to the West. [22]
The number of Crimean residents who consider Ukraine their motherland increased sharply from 32% to 71.3% from 2008 through 2011; according to a poll by Razumkov Center in March 2011, [26] although this is the lowest number in all Ukraine (93% on average across the country). [26] Surveys of regional identities in Ukraine have shown that around 30% of Crimean residents claim to have retained a self-identified "Soviet identity". [27]
Since the independence of Ukraine in 1991, 3.8 million former citizens of Russia have applied for Ukrainian citizenship. [28]
In 2014 after Russian annexation of Crimea new authorities conducted a census. According to the census result the population of the Crimean Federal District is 2.2844 million people. The ethnic composition is as follows: Russians: 1.49 million (65.3%), Ukrainians: 0.35 million (15.1%), Crimean Tatars: 0.24 million (12.0%). [19] [29] Official Ukrainian authorities and Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People claimed doubts that the results of population census in Crimea represent the facts. [30]
A survey in May 2013, asked respondents what language they spoke at home: [31]
Note that the proportion of people in the survey who gave their ethnicity as Ukrainian was 20%, Crimean Tatar 15%. [31]
| [33] | 2014 | 2015 | 2020 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic of Crimea | 1.82 | 1.82 | 1.82 | |||
| Sevastopol | 1.65 | 1.82 | 1.82 | |||
| Crimean Federal District | 1.79 | 1.82 | 1.82 |
Life expectancy at birth for Crimea as a whole, calculated as weighted average between the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol, according to number of population. [34] [35]
| 2019 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Average: | 72.9 years | 70.2 years |
| Male: | 67.9 years | 65.9 years |
| Female: | 77.5 years | 74.5 years |
The 2001 Ukrainian census for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea cites the following figures for the population of "able-to-work age" (men 16–59 years, women 16–54 years): [36]
The Crimean peninsula was Christianised at an early time, via Gothic Christianity, in the 4th century. In the 9th century, the Goths in Crimea turned to the Greek Orthodox Church, under the Metropolitanate of Gothia. In 988, Prince Vladimir I of Kyiv also captured the Byzantine town of Chersonesos (presently part of Sevastopol) where he later converted to Christianity. Christianity was mostly swept away by the Mongol invasion of Rus' in the 1230s. Islam becomes the state religion of the Golden Horde in the early 14th century. The first mosque in Crimea was built by Ozbeg Khan in Eski Qırım in 1314. Christianity returned with the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Eastern Orthodox Russian Empire in 1783.
A survey of residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in May 2013 found that: [31]
The proportion of the population in the survey who were Crimean Tatar was 15%. [31]
Respondents to the same survey said that they attended a religious service: [31]
According to the United Nations, Ukraine has a population of 37.9 million as of 2024.
Sevastopol, sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base throughout its history. Since the city's founding in 1783 it has been a major base for Russia's Black Sea Fleet. During the Cold War of the 20th century, it was a closed city. The total administrative area is 864 square kilometres (334 sq mi) and includes a significant amount of rural land. The urban population, largely concentrated around Sevastopol Bay, is 479,394, and the total population is 547,820.
Crimea is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey. The population is 2.4 million, and the largest city is Sevastopol. The region has been under Russian occupation since 2014.
Simferopol, also known as Aqmescit, is the second-largest city on the Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, controlled by Russia, and is considered the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans also spelled as Krimtsy are a Turkic ethnic group and nation indigenous to Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Ukrainian Greeks, Italians, Ottoman Turks, Goths, Sarmatians, Anglo-Saxons, and many others.
Bakhchysarai is a city in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Bakhchysarai Raion (district), as well as the former capital of the Crimean Khanate. Its main landmark is Hansaray, the only extant palace of the Crimean Khans, currently open to tourists as a museum. Population: 27,448 .
Yevpatoria is a city in Western Crimea, north of Kalamita Bay. Yevpatoria serves as the administrative center of Yevpatoria Municipality, one of the districts (raions) into which Crimea is divided. It had a population of 105,719 .
The flag of Crimea is the flag of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine and the Republic of Crimea controlled by Russia. The flag was officially adopted on 24 September 1992 as the flag of the Republic of Crimea, readopted on 21 April 1999, then readopted on 4 June 2014 as the flag of the Republic of Crimea, annexed by the Russian Federation.
Taurida Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire. It included the territory of the Crimean Peninsula and the mainland between the lower Dnieper River with the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. It formed after the Taurida Oblast was abolished in 1802 during Paul I's administrative reform of the territories of the former Crimean Khanate, which were annexed by Russia from the Ottoman Empire in 1783. The governorate's centre was the city of Simferopol. The name of the province was derived from Taurida, a historical name for Crimea.
The Urums are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths, with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity.
The recorded history of the Crimean Peninsula, historically known as Tauris, Taurica, and the Tauric Chersonese, begins around the 5th century BCE when several Greek colonies were established along its coast, the most important of which was Chersonesos near modern day Sevastopol, with Scythians and Tauri in the hinterland to the north. The southern coast gradually consolidated into the Bosporan Kingdom which was annexed by Pontus and then became a client kingdom of Rome. The south coast remained Greek in culture for almost two thousand years including under Roman successor states, the Byzantine Empire (341–1204), the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461), and the independent Principality of Theodoro. In the 13th century, some Crimean port cities were controlled by the Venetians and by the Genovese, but the interior was much less stable, enduring a long series of conquests and invasions. In the medieval period, it was partially conquered by Kievan Rus' whose prince Vladimir the Great was baptised at Sevastopol, which marked the beginning of the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. During the Mongol invasion of Europe, the north and centre of Crimea fell to the Mongol Golden Horde, and in the 1440s the Crimean Khanate formed out of the collapse of the horde but quite rapidly itself became subject to the Ottoman Empire, which also conquered the coastal areas which had kept independent of the Khanate. A major source of prosperity in these times was frequent raids into Russia for slaves for the Crimean slave trade.
Lenine Raion or Yedy-Kuiu Raion was one of the twenty-five districts of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine until its abolition in 2020. It continues to be used by the Russian administration known as the Republic of Crimea, as Russia has occupied Crimea since 2014.
Greeks have been present in what is now southern Russia from the 6th century BC; those settlers assimilated into the indigenous populations. The vast majority of contemporary Russia's Greek minority populations are descendants of Medieval Greek refugees, traders, and immigrants from the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Balkans, and Pontic Greeks from the Empire of Trebizond and Eastern Anatolia who settled mainly in southern Russia and the South Caucasus in several waves between the mid-15th century and the second Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29. As during the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks, the survivors fled to the Upper Pontus.
The Crimean People's Republic or Crimean Democratic Republic was a self-declared state that existed from December 1917 to January 1918 in the Crimean Peninsula. The Republic was one of many short-lived states that declared independence following the 1917 Russian Revolution caused the collapse of the Russian Empire.
The Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic was an unsuccessful attempt to establish a Soviet republic situated in the Crimean Peninsula part of Soviet Russia. The republic was established by Bolsheviks Jan Miller and Anton Slutsky who previously participated in the Petrograd Bolshevik Revolution.
The Crimean Regional Government refers to two successive short-lived regimes in the Crimean Peninsula during 1918 and 1919.
Krasnohvardiiske, also known as Krasnogvardeyskoye or Kurman, is an urban-type settlement in the Crimea, a territory recognized by a majority of countries as part of Ukraine and annexed by Russia. The town also serves as the administrative center of Krasnohvardiiske Raion (district) - also known as Kurman Raion - and houses the district's local administration buildings. Its population is 11,134 .
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula, while the City of Sevastopol occupies the rest.
The Republic of Crimea is a republic of Russia, comprising most of the Crimean Peninsula, but excluding Sevastopol. Its territory corresponds to the pre-2023 territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a de jure subdivision of Ukraine. Russia occupied and annexed the peninsula in 2014, although the annexation remains internationally unrecognized.
Poltavske, is a village in the southern part of the Krasnoperekopsk Raion, Autonomous Republic of Crimea, southern Ukraine. The settlement was occupied in 2014, and was unilaterally annexed by the Russian Federation, after conducting a highly disputed referendum.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| Taurida Governate | Berdyansk District | Dneiper District | Melitopol District | Crimea | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russians | 404,463 | 55,303 | 42,180 | 126,017 | 180,963 |
| Ukrainians | 611,121 | 179,177 | 156,151 | 211,090 | 64,703 |
| Tatars | 196,854 | 770 | 506 | 1,284 | 194,294 |
| Belarusians | 9,726 | 1,323 | 3,005 | 3,340 | 2,058 |
| Armenians | 8,938 | 201 | 47 | 373 | 8,317 |
| Jews | 55,418 | 8,889 | 6,298 | 16,063 | 24,168 |
| Other | 161,270 | 59,055 | 4,054 | 26,072 | 72,089 |
| Total Population | 1,447,790 | 304,718 | 212,241 | 384,239 | 546,592 |
