Ivano-Frankivsk

Ivano-Frankivsk stənyĭsläfˈ [key], city (1989 pop. 214,000), capital of Ivano-Frankivsk region, W Ukraine, on the Bystrytsya River. It is a rail junction and industrial center situated in a fertile agricultural zone of the Carpathian foothills. The city has diverse light industries such as woodworking, machinery and furniture making, and food processing.

An old Ukrainian settlement, the city was chartered in 1662 as the Polish town of Stanisławów. Despite Tatar and Turkish raids, it flourished as a trade center in the 17th and 18th cent. It became the bishopric of the Ukrainian Catholic (Uniate) Church in 1850. It passed to Austria in 1772 and to Poland in 1919 and was incorporated into Ukraine in 1939. The city and oblast were renamed in 1962 in honor of the Ukrainian poet and writer Ivan Franko. Landmarks include a wooden church (1601), a Catholic Uniate cathedral, and an 18th-century palace.

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