List of cities in Kirovohrad Oblast

There are 12 populated places in Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine, that have been officially granted city status (Ukrainian: місто, romanized: misto) by the Verkhovna Rada, the country's parliament.^[2] Settlements with more than 10,000 people are eligible for city status, although the status is typically also granted to settlements of historical or regional importance.^[3][4][5] As of 5 December 2001, the date of the first and only official census in the country since independence,^[a] the most populous city in the oblast was the regional capital, Kropyvnytskyi, with a population of 254,103 people, while the least populous city was Blahovishchenske, with 7,526 people.^[6][7] After the enactment of decommunization laws, two cities within the oblast, including the regional capital, were renamed in 2016 for their former names' connection to people, places, events, and organizations associated with the Soviet Union.^[8][9] The renamed cities Blahovishchenske and Kropyvnytskyi were previously named Ulianovka and Kirovohrad, respectively.^[10]

Location of cities in Kirovohrad Oblast^[1]

From independence in 1991 to 2020, four cities in the oblast were designated as cities of regional significance (municipalities), which had self-government under city councils, while the oblast's remaining eight cities were located amongst twenty-one raions (districts) as cities of district significance, which are subordinated to the governments of the raions.^[11][12][7] On 18 July 2020, an administrative reform abolished and merged the oblast's raions and cities of regional significance into four new, expanded raions.^[3][13] The four raions that make up the oblast are Holovanivsk, Kropyvnytskyi, Novoukrainka, and Oleksandriia.^[14]