Zaporizhzhya

Zaporizhzhya (zäp"urizh'u) [key], Rus. Zaporozhye, city (1989 pop. 884,000), capital of Zaporizhzhya region, in Ukraine, a port on the Dnieper River, opposite the island of Khortytsya. The city, founded in 1770 on the site of the Zaporizhzhya Cossack camp, consists of old Zaporizhzhya (called Aleksandrovsk before 1921) and the new industrial Zaporizhzhya, which developed during the 1930s and adjoins the Dniprohes installations and the port of Lenin.

It is a major rail junction and industrial center and the site of the Dniprohes dam and power station, one of the country's largest hydroelectric plants. Large quantities of grain are exported. The city has steel mills, coking plants, aluminum and magnesium works, and factories that produce automobiles, farm machinery, and transformers. Well supplied with electricity, Zaporizhzhya forms, together with the adjoining Donets Basin and the Nikopol manganese and Kryvyy Rih iron mines, one of Ukraine's leading industrial complexes. The high concentration of older industry, however, has had a harmful effect on air quality.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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