Chernobyl or Chornobyl is a in the , situated in the of northern , . Chernobyl is about 90 kilometres (60 mi) north of , and 160 kilometres (100 mi) southwest of the city of . Before its evacuation, the city had about 14,000 residents (considerably less than neighboring ). While living anywhere within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is technically illegal today, authorities tolerate those who choose to live within some of the less irradiated areas, and around 1,000 people live in Chernobyl today.
First mentioned as a hunting lodge in 1193, the city has changed hands multiple times over the course of history. Jews moved into the city in the 16th century, and a now-defunct monastery was established in the area in 1626. By the end of the 18th century, Chernobyl was a major centre of under the , which left Chernobyl after the city was subjected to in the early 20th century. The Jewish community was later murdered during the . Chernobyl was chosen as the site of in 1972, located 15 kilometres (9 mi) north of the city, which opened in 1977. Chernobyl was evacuated on 5 May 1986, nine days after a at the plant, which was the largest nuclear disaster in history. Along with the residents of the nearby city of , which was built as a home for the plant's workers, the population was relocated to the newly built city of , and most have never returned.
The city was the of (district) from 1923. After the disaster, in 1988, the raion was dissolved and administration was transferred to the neighbouring . The raion was abolished on 18 July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Kyiv Oblast to seven. The area of Ivankiv Raion was merged into .
Although Chernobyl is primarily a ghost town today, a small number of people still live there, in houses marked with signs that read, "Owner of this house lives here", and a small number of animals live there as well. Workers on watch and administrative personnel of the are also stationed in the city. The city has two and a hotel.
During the , Chernobyl was temporarily by Russian forces between 24 February and 2 April. After its capture, it was reported that radiation levels temporarily rose, due to human activities, including earthworks, which disturbed the dust.
Etymology
The city's name is the same as one of the names for , or common : чорнобиль, chornóbyl' (or more commonly полин звичайний polýn zvycháynyy, 'common artemisia'). The name is inherited from *čьrnobylъ or *čьrnobyl, a compound of *čьrnъ 'black' + *bylь 'grass', the parts related to Ukrainian: чорний, romanized: chórnyy, lit. 'black' and било byló, 'stalk', so named in distinction to the lighter-stemmed wormwood .
The name in languages used nearby is:
: Чорнобиль, : Chornobyl′, pronounced : Чарнобыль, : Čarnobyĺ, pronounced : Черно́быль, : Chernobyl′, pronounced .
The name in languages formerly used in the area is:
: Czarnobyl, pronounced : טשערנאָבל, : Tshernobl, pronounced .
In English, the Russian-derived spelling Chernobyl has been commonly used, but some style guides recommend the spelling Chornobyl, or the use of romanized Ukrainian names for Ukrainian places generally.
History
The Polish of 1880–1902 states that the time the city was founded is not known.
Identity of Ptolemy's "Azagarium"
Some older geographical dictionaries and descriptions of modern mention "Czernobol" (Chernobyl) with reference to (2nd century AD). Czernobol is identified as [] "oppidium Sarmatiae" (Lat., "a city in Sarmatia"), by the 1605 Lexicon geographicum of and the 1677 of Johann Jakob Hofmann. According to the Dictionary of Ancient Geography of (London, 1773), Azagarium is "a town of , on the " (), 36° East longitude and 50°40' latitude. The city is "now supposed to be Czernobol, a town of Poland, in Red Russia [], in the Palatinate of Kiow [], not far from the Borysthenes."
