Who are the Ukrainians?

Modern archeological evidence indicates that Ukrainians are indigenous to this land, where their ancestors lived in the fourth and third millennia BC. At the crossroad of East and West, the blood of the indigenous population has mixed with that of nomadic tribes for centuries on end. Inherent in Ukrainians are hard work, thrift, deep emotional bond with the land in which they were born and raised, hospitality, and benevolence. As a rule the Ukrainians' combination of reserve and lyricism join together with the joy of life, unique humor, or bitter irony. All this is embodied in Ukrainian musical folklore heritage, folk music, decorative arts, and vivid folk rites, all of which reflect the people's entire historical memory, millenium-old culture, and history.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wars, famine, and oppression by the authorities caused mass migrations of Ukrainians. Today, about thirteen million Ukrainians live outside Ukraine: 8 million in Russia, over one million in the United States, 600.000 in Canada, 500.000 in Poland and Romania, 150.000 in Argentina, and 100.000 in Brasil. The independence of Ukraine has awakened the feeling of the spiritual unity of all Ukrainians throughout the world.

Population

Population of Ukraine is 49, 811,174 (1999 )
Ukraine ranks fifth in Europe in terms of population. Most people (70%) live in urban areas, and 30% in the countryside. Urbanization is especially marked in central and southeastern Ukraine, while in some western regions the rural population exceeds the urban population. The average population density is 85 people per square kilometer. In 1939 the population of Ukraine was 41 million people, but in 1945, only 27 million people.
Ukrainians comprise 73% of the country's population. They belong to the eastern Slavic subgroup of the Indo-European language group. There arc more than 14 million people of other nationalities in Ukraine: Russians, Jews, Belarussians, Moldovans, Bulgarians, Poles and others. The Ukrainian Constitution guarantees equal ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious rights for all indigenous peoples and national minorities.

Population structure

Age structure:
0-14 years: 18% (male 4,690,318 female 4,498,239)
15-64 years: 68% (male 16,136,296 female 17,572,011)
65 years and over: 14% (male 2,251,664 female 4,662,646) (1999)
Population growth rate: -0.62% (1999)
Birth rate: 9.54 births/1,000 population (1999)
Death rate: 16.38 deaths/1,000 population (1999)
Infant mortality rate: 21.73 deaths/1,000 live births (1999)
Life expectancy:
total population: 65.91 years
male: 60.23 years
female: 71.87 years (1999)
Labor force: 23.55 million; by occupation:
industry and construction - 33%, agriculture and forestry - 21%, health, education and culture - 16%,
trade and distribution - 7%, transport and communication - 7%, other - 16%.
Unemployment rate: 3.7% (officially registered), large number of unregistered or underemployed workers (1998).
Net migration rate: 0.63 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1999)

Religion

Predominantly Christian: Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic. Now Ukrainian Orthodoxy is represented by three branches - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate, 70%), Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate, 20%), and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (9.8%).

Other religions like Islam, Judaism etc. are also professed by some part of the population.