crimea

Crimea ( (listen) kry-MEE-ə, Krym (Ukrainian: Крим; Russian: Крым)) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe. It is situated along the northern coast of the Black Sea, and has a population of 2.4 million, made up mostly of ethnic Russians with significant Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities, among others. The peninsula is almost entirely surrounded by both the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov; it is located south of Kherson Oblast (which is partially occupied by Russia) in Ukraine, to which it is connected by the Isthmus of Perekop, and west of Krasnodar Krai in Russia, from which it is separated by the Strait of Kerch though linked by the Crimean Bridge since 2018. The Arabat Spit is located to its northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey.
Crimea (called the Tauric Peninsula until the early modern period) has historically been at the boundary between the classical world and the steppe. Greeks colonised its southern fringe and were absorbed by the Roman and Byzantine Empires and successor states while remaining culturally Greek. Some cities became trading colonies of Genoa, until conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Throughout this time the interior was occupied by a changing cast of steppe nomads and eventually became part of the Golden Horde with the Crimean Khanate emerging as a successor state which itself became a dependency of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, often raiding Russia for slaves. Russia annexed Crimea in 1783 after an earlier war with Turkey. Crimea's strategic position led to the 1854 Crimean War and many short lived regimes following the 1917 Russian Revolution. When the Bolsheviks secured Crimea it became an autonomous soviet republic within Russia. During World War II, Crimea was downgraded to an oblast and the Crimean Tatars were deported. The USSR transferred Crimea to Ukraine on the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Treaty in 1954. After Ukrainian independence in 1991 the central government and Crimea clashed, culminating in Ukraine forcibly bringing Crimea under control. The Soviet fleet in Crimea was also in contention but a 1997 treaty allowed Russia to continue basing its fleet in Sevastopol. In 2014 pro-Russians seized control organising a referendum supporting Russian annexation but most countries recognise Crimea as Ukrainian.

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