Ukraine / Україна
Quick Facts:
Capital: Kyiv (learn how to pronounce Kyiv like a Ukrainian)
Official Language: Ukrainian
Population: 38 million (World Bank, 2022)
Area: 233,062 square miles (603,628 square kilometers)*
Religion: Eastern Orthodoxy is the dominant religion, but there is no official state religion
Currency: Hyrvnia
*This includes territory annexed by Russia
Ukrainian Language
Ukrainian is an East Slavic language spoken in Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe. There are about 40 million native speakers of Ukrainian and many more who speak it as a second or third language. It is the 26th most widely spoken languages in the world.
Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet, which combines letters from the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets, as well as some of its own unique characters. The Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters. Learn to pronounce the letters of the Ukrainian alphabet here or sing the Ukrainian alphabet song here.
Check out the Ukrainian Word of the Day series on the CREES Instagram account @KU_CREES
Explore Ukrainian Culture
Explore Ukraine's culture through its art, music, holidays, food, history, and literature.
Thumbnail List
Explore traditional Ukrainian folk arts and crafts.
Explore traditional Ukrainian instruments as well as modern Ukrainian music.
Coming soon!
Ukrainian Money / Гроші
Ukraine uses a currency called the hryvnia (or hryvna). There are hryvni, like there are dollars, and kopiyky, like there are cents. There are 100 kopiyky in one hryvnia. The number of hryvnii that equal one US dollar changes. You can google the current exchange rate.
One hryvna coin
One kopiyka coin
National Anthem and Flag
National Anthem
The lyrics are a modified version of the first stanza of a poem written by Pavlo Chubynsky in 1862. The music was composed in 1863 by Mykhailo Verbytsky.
