Sevastopol is a city on the Black Sea, located in the southwest of the Crimean PeninsulaâÂÂa territory disputed between Russia and Ukraine as a result of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. It has been under the de facto Russian control since March 2014, when it was incorporated into Russia as one of its federal subjects, with a status of a federal city. Being a disputed territory, Sevastopol has two sets of laws governing how its administrative and municipal divisions are set up. Under both Ukrainian and Russian laws, the city is administratively divided into four districts.
Under the Ukrainian laws, the districts have both administrative and municipal status, while under the Russian laws the districts are purely administrative and have no further divisions. Within the Russian municipal framework, however, the territory of the federal city of Sevastopol is divided into nine municipal okrugs and the city of Inkerman. While individual municipal divisions are contained within the borders of the administrative districts, they are not otherwise related to the administrative districts. The borders of the municipal okrugs are unchanged from the borders of the municipalities which exist under the Ukrainian law.
Sevastopol is divided into four urban districts (also known as raions):
All settlements in Sevastopol are organized within the urban districts. Most of the city's urban areas are located within the Leninskyi and Haharinskyi districts, with the Leninskyi District housing the city administration. The former Balaklava settlement, at the southern portion of Sevastopol, is part of the Balaklavskyi District; a raion that contains 29 rural settlements which in turn comprise several villages. The Chersonesus Taurica reserve with archaeological site and museum is located in the Haharinskyi District.
The districts covered areas outside of Sevastopol proper, namely 28 villages surrounding the city and more than 30 unincorporated settlements, as well as the city of Inkerman and the rural settlement of Kacha, until Ukraine de jure merged these regions into Bakhchysarai Raion of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in 2023, thus excluding them from Sevastopol's boundaries. The composition of each urban district prior to the 2023 reform is as follows:
Western part of the city. Includes: Chersonesus; bays: Kozacha, Komysheva, Omeha, Striletska, Karantynna; gullies: Yukharyna, Maiachna, and others.
Central part of the city. Includes: Karantynna Bay on the west, Sarandinakina Gully and Pivdenna Bay on the east coast of Sevastopol BayâÂÂin the north and the border areas of Balaklavskyi and Gagarinskyi districtsâÂÂin the south.
Northern part of city, north side, and the territory north of the Belbek River. The region includes the North and the Ship side of Sevastopol, as well as rural area, with the following populated places (in brackets are the historical placenames prior to renamings of the 1940s):
South-eastern part of the city, including the southernmost point of Ukraine â Cape Sarych.
There were 34 settlements in the territory of the Balaklavskyi District (in brackets are the historical placenames prior to renamings of the 1940s):
Under the Russian law, the only administrative divisions of the federal city of Sevastopol are the districts, which are the same four districts used under the Ukrainian laws. Within the Russian municipal framework, however, the territory of the federal city of Sevastopol is divided into nine municipal okrugs and the city of Inkerman. While individual municipal divisions are contained within the borders of the administrative districts as to not create difficulties between various levels of governance, they are not otherwise related to those administrative districts. In 2019, Russia has granted Balaklava city status.
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