Landscape

Ukraine consists mainly of flat lowland and gently rolling uplands, with only about 5% of the country covered by mountain and sub-mountain regions. The western edge of Ukraine lies within the Carpathian mountain range which stretches from the Czech Republic to Romania. The highest mountain in the Ukrainian Carpathians is Hoverla, rising to 2,061 metres (by comparison, the height of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps, is 4,807 metres). Forests, in which fir and beech trees predominate, cover about half the area of the mountain slopes. On the south-eastern coast of the Crimean peninsula is the Crimean mountain range, the highest point of which is the Roman-Kosh peak at 1,545 metres. About 60% of this area is covered by forest, consisting mainly of oak, beech, hornbeam and pine.

The remainder of the country can be divided into three main geographic zones, which consist roughly of parallel east-west belts. In the north is the forest zone, covering 20% of the country. The height of the land varies mostly between 100 and 200 metres, but reaches around 400 metres in some places in the west. Of this zone, approximately one third is covered by forest, mainly pine, oak, birch and alder, and a similar area is cultivated.

The forest-steppe zone in the centre, covering about 35% of the country, is a mixture of forest and steppe (the 'steppes' are the belt of natural grassland plains stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea to eastern Kazakhstan). Here the land height varies between 50 and 500 metres, the higher regions being mainly in the west. About 12% of the zone is covered by forest, mainly oak, hornbeam, beech and ash, and up to 80% of the land is farmed.

The remaining 40% of the country, in the south and east, is within the steppe belt. Most of the land is between 0 and 300 metres above sea level, the higher regions being in the north and east of the zone. Only 3% of the zone is forested, while 80% consists of arable land. Most of the land in the forest-steppe and steppe zones (44% of the whole country) is covered by chornozem (literally 'black earth'), a particularly fertile type of soil.