Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast (Ukrainian: Харківська область, romanized: Kharkivska oblast, Russian: Харьковская область, romanized: Kharkovskaya oblast), also referred to as Kharkivshchyna (Ukrainian: Харківщина), is an oblast (province) in eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv borders Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the southeast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the southwest, Poltava Oblast to the west, Sumy Oblast to the northwest and Russia's Belgorod Oblast to the north. Its area is 31,400 square kilometres (12,100 sq mi), or 5.2% of the total territory of Ukraine. The oblast is the third-most populous of Ukraine, with a population of 2,598,961 in 2021, more than half (1.42 million) of whom live in the city of Kharkiv, the oblast's administrative center.