About Ivano-Frankivsk

Ivano-Frankovsk, city in western Ukraine, capital of Ivano-Frankovsk Oblast on the Bystrytsya River, about 115 km (about 70 mi) southeast of L'viv. Named after the Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko (1856-1916), the city was called Stanyslaviv until 1962. Ivano-Frankovsk is a commercial, industrial, and cultural center in a fertile agricultural lowland amid the northern foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Local metalworking enterprises repair automobiles and locomotives and also manufacture instruments and tools. Other manufactures include petroleum and gas equipment, and consumer goods. It has a university, institutes of medicine, petroleum and gas, and theology, and a business school. Cultural institutions include drama and puppet theaters, a philharmonic orchestra, the Hutsul Song and Dance Ensemble, and a museum of local history. Monuments include an old city hall, an 18th-century former Jesuit college, a former Armenian church, and remnants of city walls. The city was established in 1662 on the site of the former village of Zabolotiv by a Polish magnate. It flourished as a trade center in the 17th and 18th centuries. The city passed to Austria in 1772. After 1848 the Ukrainian national movement gained force, and the city became a bishopric seat of the Ukrainian Catholic (Uniate) Church in 1885. From December 1918 to May 1919, while Polish troops occupied L'viv, it served as capital of the short-lived West Ukrainian National Republic. It passed to Poland in 1919, and then to the Ukrainian republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1939. Population (1998 estimate) 237,000.