NIKOPOL

also spelled Nikopol ', city, Dnepropetrovsk oblast (province), south-central Ukraine. It lies along the northern shore of the Kakhovka Reservoir on the Dnieper River and on the ZaporozhyeKrivoy Rog railway. Founded as Nikitin Rog in the 1630s at a strategic crossing of the river, it was renamed Nikopol in 1782. It is important as the centre of the world's largest deposit of manganese, first mined there in 1886. Reserves are estimated at approximately 500,000,000 tons, much of which has a high metal content. The city's metallurgical industry produces ferroalloys, steel tubes, cranes, and agricultural machinery; food processing and brewing are also significant. A dam protects the lower part of the city from inundation by the reservoir. Pop. (1991 est.) 159,000. town, northern Bulgaria. It lies along the Danube River near its confluence with the Osum (Ossam) and opposite Turnu Magurele, Rom. Nikopol was an important Danubian strongholdruined fortresses still dominate the townfounded by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius I in AD 629. In 1396 the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I defeated a crusader army led by King Sigismund of Hungary at Nikopol, an event that contributed significantly to Turkish domination of the Balkans for five centuries. Occupied by the Turks in 13931877, Nikopol was again fortified and became an important administrative town. Its population grew to approximately 40,000 before it was destroyed by the Russians in 1810; thereupon the Turks moved the regional centre of government northwest to Vidin, and Nikopol consequently declined. The Russians liberated Nikopol from Turkish control in 1877. Farming, viticulture, and fishing are the main means of livelihood; as a port, it has been superseded by Somovit. Pop. (1988 est.) 16,897.