Kiev (Kyiv) is one of the more beautiful and one of the oldest cities of Eastern Europe and has played a pivotal role in the development of the East Slavic civilization as well as in the modern Ukrainian nation. Founded 1500 years ago, Kiev is the capital of Ukraine and Kiev region. The name Kiev is said to derive from the name of Kiy (also Kyi), one of four legendary founders of the city (brothers Kiy, Shchek, Khoryv, and sister Lybid). They founded the city in the 5th century A.D. The legend is widely recognized as a source of Kiev's mythology and, accordingly, urban naming.

Currently, Kiev is the traditional and most commonly used English name for the city, but in 1995 the Ukrainian government adopted Kyiv as the mandatory romanization for use in legislative and official acts. Kiev is situated on the picturesque banks of the Dnieper river. It is one of the most beautiful cities of Europe. One half of Kyiv's territory is occupied by parks and gardens. One of the biggest cities of Europe, Kiev has a population of 3,14 million and occupies an area of more than 840 square kilometers. Kiev's most famous historical architecture complexes are the St. Sophia Cathedral, where the princes of Kiev were crowned in the years of Kiev's grandeur, and the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), has two 11th-century cathedrals on its grounds, in addition to its world-famous catacombs, which are recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
 

• Geographically, Kiev is located on the border of the Polesia woodland ecological zone, a part of the European mixed woods area, and the East European forest-steppe biome.
• Kiev has a warm-summer humid continental climate.The warmest months are June, July, and August, with mean temperatures of 13.8 to 24.8 °C (56.8 to 76.6 °F). The coldest are December, January, and February, with mean temperatures of ?4.6 to ?1.1 °C (23.7 to 30.0 °F). The highest ever temperature recorded in the city was 39.4 °C (102.9 °F) on 30 July 1936. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the city was ?32.9 °C (?27.2 °F) on 11 January 1951.
• According to the official registration statistics, there were 2,847,200 residents within the city limits of Kiev in July 2013.
• The author of the world’s first constitution was Ukrainian statesman Philip Orlik. In April 1710 he was elected the Hetman of Zaporozhye army. On April 5, the first day of being Hetman, Orlik proclaimed “Pact and Constitution of the rights and liberties of Zaporozhye Army”. The document that
• was rather forward-thinking for the time regulated the division of power into three separate branches; it documented duties and rights of the citizens and authorities.
• The miniature of world famous shod flea can be found in the Kiev State Museum of Miniatures. The author of this creation is Syadristy Nikolai – famous Ukrainian master who created over 1,000 miniatures.
• In the ranking for the most melodious language in the world Ukrainian its rightful place, it is second only to Italian. In addition, at the Paris language contest held in 1934 it was recognized as the third among the most beautiful languages ??in the world according to several criteria: vocabulary, phonetics, construction of sentences and phraseology, the first two are Persian and French.
• Ukraine is the world’s fifth-largest consumer of alcoholic drinks. Only Czechs, Hungarians, Russians and Moldovans drink less than our countrymen.
• According to statistics, every citizen of Ukraine aged over 15 drinks more than fifteen liters of alcohol per year; that is one liter more than Irish drink and two liters more than residents of Norway do. Book Pub Crawls or Nightlife Tours in Kiev with cute female guides by Guide me UA.
• Ukraine has the largest in the world supply of manganese ore – 11% of the deposits of the entire planet, or 2.33 billion tons.
• Christmas folk song Shchedryk is one of the most popular in the world. The author of the composition is Nikolai Leontovich, the popular Ukrainian composer. The world knows the song as the Ring Christmas Bells or Carol of the Bells.
   

The municipality of the city of Kiev has a special legal status within Ukraine compared to the other administrative subdivisions of the country. The most significant difference is that the city is considered as a region of Ukraine (see Regions of Ukraine). It is the only city that has double jurisdiction. The Head of City State Administration — the city's governor, is appointed by the President of Ukraine, while the Head of the City Council — the Mayor of Kiev, is elected by local popular vote.
 

As with most capital cities, Kiev is a major administrative, cultural and scientific centre of the country. It is the largest city in Ukraine in terms of both population and area and enjoys the highest levels of business activity. On 1 January 2010 there were around 238,000 business entities registered in Kiev. Official figures show that between 2004 and 2008 Kiev's economy outstripped the rest of the country's, growing by an annual average of 11.5%.Following the global financial crisis that began in 2007, Kiev's economy suffered a severe setback in 2009 with gross regional product contracting by 13.5% in real terms. Although a record high, the decline in activity was 1.6 percentage points smaller than that for the country as a whole. The economy in Kiev, as in the rest of Ukraine, recovered somewhat in 2010 and 2011. Kiev is a middle-income city, with prices currently comparable to many mid-size American cities (i.e., considerably lower than Western Europe).
 

Ukraine enjoys an extensive though aging infrastructure that has received much government attention in the 1990s. The transport network of Ukraine is dominated by railways, which total 23,350 kilometers (14,510 miles). It also has 273,700 kilometers (170,077 miles) of highways, 86 percent of which are paved. In 1990, the total length of navigable waterways was 4,499 kilometers. (2,796 miles). There is a comparably well-developed air transport communication system in Ukraine. In 2000, there were 718 airports, 114 of which had paved runways.

The main international airport is at Kiev and the nation's main airline is Air Ukraine. In 1997, about 1.8 million people either landed at or departed from airports in Ukraine. Ukraine has a powerful merchant and passenger fleet, operating in the basins of the Black Sea and Sea of Asov, and on the navigable rivers. In 1999, the merchant marine included 156 ships that were larger than 1,000 tons. This included 105 general cargo ships, 14 rail carrier vessels, and 11 passenger ships. The nation's main ports are Kerch, Kiev, Odessa, Sevastopol, and Reni.