Khabarovsk krai [Хабаровский край; Khabarovskii krai]. An administrative region of the Russian Federation on the Pacific coast in the Far East (capital Khabarovsk). Covering 824,600 sq km, it has (2019) a population of 1,321, 496, 82.56 percent of which is urban. According to the 1979 census, 86.6 percent of the population was Russian and 5.8 percent was Ukrainian. Judging by the 1926 census, according to which Ukrainians accounted for 23 percent of the population, the number of people of Ukrainian descent should be much higher. The number of political prisoners, many of them Ukrainians, who were held (in 1979) in the labor camps scattered throughout the region was unknown. They were forced to work in logging. For decades Ukrainians in Khabarovsk krai (and the Russian Federation in general) have been deprived of access to Ukrainian-language education or publications, and many of them become Russified. According to the 2010 census, 91.8 percent of the population is Russian and only 2.1 percent is Ukrainian.

[This article was updated in 2019.]


Encyclopedia of Ukraine