Geographic information about the city of Poltava

Poltava is the center of the region of the same name.

Coordinates: 49° 00' 36'' N. lat.; 34° 00' 33`` E. e. Area: 103.5 sq. km.

The city is located in the eastern part of the Poltava region on both banks of the Vorskla River and is one of the largest industrial and cultural centers of the Left-Bank Dnieper Region. Poltava lies within the vast East European Plain, on the flat Poltava Plateau and its steep riverside slope. The larger, western part of the city lies on a relatively high (150...159 m above sea level) watershed plateau, dissected near the Vorskla Valley by fairly deep gullies into a number of flat-topped ledges (Monastyrsky, Instytutsky, Kobyshchansky, Ivanova Gora). The smaller, eastern part of the city (Podil, Levada, Dublyanshchyna) is located on the floodplain and partly on the first terrace of the Vorskla River. Absolute heights from 78 m to 100 m above sea level prevail here. From the east, the city is limited by the valley of the Kolomak River near its mouth.

At the base of the city lies a part of the East European Platform - the Dnieper-Donetsk Depression with a depth of the basement of 12 km. The sedimentary cover of the basement contains rock salt, which lies under the city at a depth of 2 km, construction sands, and forest-like loams.

The geographical position of Poltava within the temperate climatic zone determines its features of a temperate continental type of climate: average air temperature in July (+ 20.5°C); average air temperature in January (–7.0°C); average annual precipitation of 525 mm; humidity coefficient of 0.7; the duration of the frost-free period is 174 days.

In the western outskirts of the city, dark gray forest soils and black soils prevail, and in the eastern ones - sod and meadow soils. Green spaces occupy more than 1/5 of the city's area. There are more than 30 objects of the nature reserve fund.

The natural resource potential, convenient economic and geographical position of Poltava determined the specialization of its enterprises in the fuel, food, light, and woodworking industries. The location near large metallurgical, machine-building, and scientific centers such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro led to the development of machine-building and chemical industries. The city provides 1/4 of the region's industrial output.

Poltava is one of the cities with a population density of over 3,000 people/sq. km. About 87% of the city's population is Ukrainian. 44.0% of the working-age population is employed in industry, over 16.0% in the service sector, 6.0% in science, culture, and education.

As of 01.01.2020, 286.6 thousand people live in Poltava.