List of cities in Odesa Oblast

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Location of cities in Odesa Oblast^[1]

There are 19 populated places in Odesa Oblast, Ukraine, that have been officially granted city status (Ukrainian: місто, romanized: misto) by the Verkhovna Rada, the country's parliament.^[2] Settlements with more than 10,000 people are eligible for city status, although the status is typically also granted to settlements of historical or regional importance.^[3][4][5] As of 5 December 2001, the date of the first and only official census in the country since independence,^[a] the most populous city in the oblast was the regional capital, Odesa, with a population of 1,029,049 people, while the least populous city was Teplodar, with 8,830 people.^[6][7] After the enactment of decommunization laws, two cities within the oblast were renamed in 2016 for their former names' connection to people, places, events, and organizations associated with the Soviet Union.^[8][9] The renamed cities Chornomorsk and Podilsk were previously named Illichivsk and Kotovsk, respectively.^[10]

From independence in 1991 to 2020, nine cities in the oblast were designated as cities of regional significance (municipalities), which had self-government under city councils, while the oblast's remaining ten cities were located amongst twenty-six raions (districts) as cities of district significance, which are subordinated to the governments of the raions.^[11][12][7] On 18 July 2020, an administrative reform abolished and merged the oblast's raions and cities of regional significance into seven new, expanded raions.^[3][13] The seven raions that make up the oblast are Berezivka, Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Bolhrad, Izmail, Odesa, Podilsk, and Rozdilna.^[14]

One city in the oblast, the regional capital Odesa, was awarded by Soviet officials with the honorary title Hero City of Ukraine in 1965 for its resistance to the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II; the title was renewed in 2022 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.^[15][16] The city has also been recognized by UNESCO as one of Ukraine's eight World Heritage Sites since 25 January 2023.^[17][18][19] Due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, since 24 February 2022, the oblast's Black Sea ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Pivdennyi Port (located close to Yuzhne),^[20][21][22] together with its Danube river ports of Izmail, Reni, and Ust-Danube (located in Vylkove and Kiliia),^[23][b] have served as the primary route for Ukraine's international shipping.^[24][25][26] Frequent Russian airstrikes have inflicted significant damage to cities in the oblast,^[27] particularly Odesa,^[28][29] which was added on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger immediately following its recognition.^[19][30]

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