Not far from the outlet of the Dnieper into its liman, lies the government capital, Kherson (92,000 pop.), like Odessa, Mikolaiv and Katerinoslav, a young city of the end of the 18th Century. Its harbor was first made accessible to large sea-vessels by the dredging of the ship-canal of [[337]]Otshakiv in the Dnieper liman (1887), and since then the city has been growing rapidly. Kherson carries on a very important lumber and grain trade, and has large saw-mills, grain-mills, soap and tobacco factories. Two fortresses defend the entrance to the Dnieper liman, Ochakiv (12,000 pop.), with an insignificant harbor for coast vessels, and Kinburn.
In the narrow strip of low country on the north shore of the Black Sea, all the larger cities keep close to the coast. Melitopol on the Molochna (17,000 pop.), carries on considerable trade in cattle, lumber, skins, eggs and wool, and has large mills, alcohol-stills and factories, which make agricultural machinery. Berdiansk (36,000 pop.), despite its poor harbor, exports much grain, and has machine factories, mills, breweries, and fine fruit gardens and vineyards. The former great importance of Berdiansk has been inherited by Mariupol (53,000 pop.), with a good harbor at the mouth of the Kalmius, a city which possesses some factory industry, and carries on an active export trade in coal, coke, metal and grain. Still more important are the harbors at the mouths of the Don. Opposite the Don delta lies Tahanroh (75,000 pop.) with a leather and metal industry, as well as an extensive trade in grain, fish, beef, oil, bacon, leather and fruit, the most important grain exporting harbor of the Ukraine, after Odessa and Mikolaiv. In the Don delta lies Rostiv (172,000 pop.), the most important commercial city of Southeastern Ukraine, with an extensive trade in grain, cattle, wool and flax, large mills, shipyards, tobacco and machine factories. The Armenian city of Nakhichevan (71,000 pop.) forms the suburbs, as it were, of Rostiv, taking considerable part in its industrial and commercial activity. The historically memorable city of Osiv (Azof, 31,000 pop.) is an important center of the Don and Azof fishing industry, and has some grain trade. Yesk (51,000 pop.), on the eastern shore of the [[338]]Sea of Azof, has some grain export, and is a not insignificant importing city.
The mountains and hill country of the Crimea are not properly a part of the Ukrainian territory, altho the Ukrainian element flows into the villages and cities of the land in an uninterrupted stream, while the Mohammedan Tartar population emigrates to Turkey. In the northern part of the Crimean peninsula, the economic and settlement conditions are the same as in the Pontian lowland. There is an especially important cattle-raising industry. In the southern, mountainous part of the peninsula, agriculture and cattle-raising lose their predominating importance, and fruit, wine and vegetable-cultivation, navigation and salt-making, which flourishes along almost the entire coast of the Crimea, comprise the chief occupations of the population. The chief center of salt-manufacture lies on the salt lakes and limans of Eupatoria (30,000 pop.), where also famous sanatoriums are located. In the northern foothills of the Yaila lies the ancient capital of the Khans, Bakchisarai (13,000 pop.), which has entirely preserved its oriental character, as well as the new capital of Tauria, Simferopol (71,000 pop.), the center of the fruit and wine-culture and of important fruit-canning factories. An extensive fruit trade is carried on also by Karasubazar (15,000 pop.).
At the gates of the Crimean Riviera is the city of Sevastopol (77,000 pop.), world renowned since the Crimean War, a great sea-fortress and the strongest naval port of the Russian Empire in Europe. The commercial harbor of the city has been without importance for the last twelve years. In the vicinity, on a beautiful bay, lies Belklava, known for its fisheries. On the southern coast is the following chain of watering-places and summer-resorts: Alupka, Livadia, Yalta (23,000 pop.), Orianda, Alushta, Hursuf. In the summer patients and vacationists come [[339]]here from all the cities of Russia, and the Riviera of Crimea is also growing continually in importance as a winter resort.
On the eastern spurs of the Crimean peninsula lie two large cities. Feodosia (formerly Kaffa, 40,000 pop.) is the largest commercial port of Crimea, with a considerable grain and fruit export. Kerch (57,000 pop.) also has a commercial port, used especially by large ships, which must avoid the shallow Sea of Azof, but the city derives a much greater importance from its extensive fishing industry, its fish-canning and milling industry, and in recent years its metallurgical industry, which exploits the large mineral deposits of the region.
The sub-Caucasus country of Kuban, colonized a century ago by the posterity of the Zaporogs, offers, in its western part, an anthropogeographical picture quite analogous to the other central regions of the ancient Ukraine. It is actually a piece of the old Ukraine, transplanted to the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, with its large villages, farms (khutori), its important agriculture and extensive cattle-raising. Fishing, lumbering and hunting play an important part in its economic life, besides fruit and wine-culture. The mining industry is showing great promise.
The eastern and southern part of the sub-Caucasus country, which, besides parts of Kuban, embraces also parts of the Government of Stavropol and of the Black Sea and Terek regions, is a land newly settled by the Ukrainians, and has a still imperfect anthropogeographical type.
The center of the land and of the Ukrainian cultural life is Katerinodar (100,000 pop.) on the Kuban, the capital of the Kuban Cossacks. It carries on an active trade in agricultural products. The main port of the region is the rising city of Novorossysk (61,000 pop.), with a large grain, wool and petroleum export. Temriuk, in the Kuban delta, [[340]]also exports much grain. On the Bila lies the commercial city of Maikop (49,000 pop.); on the Luba, Labinsk (33,000 pop.), both important for the exchange of products of the plains and the mountains. On the Stavropol Plateau lies Stavropol (61,000 pop.), with an important grain and cattle trade, Praskoveya (11,000 pop.), with considerable wine-culture, and Olexandrivsk (10,000 pop.). At the foot of the mountain range lies the renowned mineral spring region around the commercial city of Piatihorsk (32,000 pop.). [[341]]