Largest city on the Crimean peninsula
About Sevastopol
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 by Catherine the Great 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.
Etymology
The name of Sevastopolis was originally chosen following the same etymological trend as other cities in the Crimean peninsula; it was intended to express its ancient Greek origins. It is a compound of the Greek adjective, σεβαστός (sebastós, Byzantine Greek pronunciation: [sevasˈtos]; 'venerable') and the noun πόλις (pólis, 'city'). Σεβαστός is the traditional Greek equivalent (see Sebastian) of the Roman honorific Augustus, originally given to the first emperor of the Roman Empire, Augustus and later awarded as a title to his successors. The city was probably named after Empress ("Augusta") Catherine II of the Russian Empire who founded Sevastopol in 1783. She visited the city in 1787, accompanied by Joseph II, the Emperor of Austria, and other foreign dignitaries. …
History
Sevastopol was founded in June 1783, in the area of the ancient but ruined and abandoned Greek city of Chersonesus, as a base for a naval squadron under the name Akhtiar (White Cliff), by Rear Admiral Thomas MacKenzie ("Foma Fomich Makenzi"), a native Scot in Russian service; soon after, the Russian Empire annexed the Crimean Khanate. Five years earlier, Alexander Suvorov had ordered that earthworks be erected along the harbour and Russian troops be placed there. The Crimean Tatar version of this name is now written Aqyar. In February 1784, Catherine the Great ordered Grigory Potyomkin to build a fortress there and call it Sevastopol. The realisation of the initial building plans fell to Captain Fyodor Ushakov who in 1788 was named commander of the port and of the Black Sea squadron. …
Geography
The city of Sevastopol is located at the southwestern tip of the Crimean Peninsula in a headland known as Heracles Peninsula on a coast of the Black Sea. The city is designated a special city-region of Ukraine which besides the city itself includes several of its outlying settlements. The city itself is concentrated mostly in the western portion of the region and around the long Bay of Sevastopol. This bay is a ria, a river canyon drowned by Holocene sea-level rise, and the outlet of Chorna River. Away in a remote location southeast of Sevastopol is located the former city of Balaklava (since 1957 incorporated within Sevastopol), the bay of which in the Soviet era served as a main port for the Soviet diesel-powered submarines. The coastline of the region is mostly rocky, in a series of smaller bays, a great number of which are located within the Bay of Sevastopol. …
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