Ivano-Frankivsk Ivano-Frankivsk Drohobych Category="Cities in Ukraine"Category="Galicia (Central Europe)"Category="Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast"[image] Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian: Івано-Франківськ, Ivano-Frankivs'k; before 1962 Станиславів, Stanyslaviv; Polish: Stanisławów 14th century - 1939; Russian: Івано-Франковск, Ivano-Frankovsk; German: Stanislau (before World War I); Yiddish: וולסינַאטס/Stanislev) is a city in Ukraine. It is a capital of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (province) in the west of the country. Population 204,200 (2004).

History

The city was erected as a fortress to protect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from Tatar invasions. The city was firstly mentioned in 1662 in connection with it being granted the Magdeburg rights. Later, the fortress has also successfully withstood attacks by Turkish and Russian forces. Extensively rebuilt during the Renaissance, it was sometimes called Little Leopolis. The city was also an important center of Armenian culture in Poland.

After the Partitions of Poland it became a part of Austrian Empire and successively of the autonomous Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1919 it was a subject of Polish-Ukrainian skirmishes and eventually became a part of the Second Polish Republic as the capital of the Stanisławów Voivodship. In 1939 invasion of Poland by German and Soviet forces the territory was captured by the Soviets and attached to the Ukrainian SSR.

In 1962 the name changed to honor the famous Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. In the early 1990s the city was a strong center of the Ukrainian independence movement.

1931 census

Total 198,359

Poles: 120,214 (60.6%)
Ukrainians 49,032 (24.7%)
Jews 26,996 (13.6%)

External links

[ Soviet topographic map 1:100,000]
[ 2005 satellite photo]

Ukraine \	[image]
Subdivisions of Ukraine Cherkasy \| Chernihiv \| Chernivtsi \| Crimea \| Dnipropetrovsk \| Donetsk \| Ivano-Frankivsk \| Kharkiv \| Kherson \| Khmelnytskyi \| Kiev \| Kirovohrad \| Luhansk \| Lviv \| Mykolaiv \| Odessa \| Poltava \| Rivne \| Sumy \| Ternopil \| Vinnytsia \| Volyn \| Zakarpattia \| Zaporizhia \| Zhytomyr
Principal cities Cherkasy \| Chernihiv \| Chernivtsi \| Dnipropetrovsk \| Donetsk \| Ivano-Frankivsk \| Kharkiv \| Kherson \| Khmelnytskyi \| Kiev \| Kirovohrad \| Luhansk \| Lutsk \| Lviv \| Mykolaiv \| Odessa \| Poltava \| Rivne \| Sevastopol \| Simferopol \| Sumy \| Ternopil \| Uzhhorod \| Vinnytsia \| Zaporizhia \| Zhytomyr