KHERSON

also spelled Cherson, city and administrative centre of Kherson oblast (province), southern Ukraine. It lies on the right (west) bank of the lower Dnieper River about 15 miles (25 km) from the latter's mouth. It was founded in 1778 by the military leader and statesman Grigory Potemkin as a fortress to protect the newly acquired Black Sea frontage of Russia, and it became the first Russian naval base and shipyard on the Black Sea. Modern Kherson remains a major shipbuilding centre. The city also has engineering, oil-refining, and cotton-textile industries. Kherson has teacher-training and agricultural institutes and a research institute of irrigation agriculture. Pop. (1993 est.) 371,000. also spelled Cherson, oblast (province), southern Ukraine. The oblast extends across the lower Dnieper River and along the shores of the Black Sea, Syvash Lake, and the Sea of Azov. Named for its capital, it comprises a level plain, with almost no surface water apart from the Dnieper. The whole area is in steppe, although virgin steppe now survives only in the large Askaniya-Nova Nature Reserve in the south. The climate is dry, and, although much of the oblast is under the plow, agriculture suffers severely from drought. An irrigation-canal system carries water from a large reservoir on the Dnieper in the north, created by the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric station. The oblast has the lowest population density of any in Ukraine. Area 11,000 square miles (28,500 square km). Pop. (1993 est.) 1,270,000.