Rural settlement (Ukraine)

In Ukraine, a rural settlement or selyshche (Ukrainian: селище, lit. 'settlement') is a type of populated place in Ukraine larger than a village though smaller than a city.

The term selyshche used to have a double meaning in the administrative-territorial system of Ukraine. It was used either for urban-type settlements or for some smaller populated places which are often part of a rural hromada. Unlike other nomenclatures for populated places, in the Constitution of Ukraine, the term "urban-type settlement" was not defined and was part of Soviet legislation that was conditionally grandfathered. In 2023, a law was passed to finally eliminate any deviations or variations of the term rural settlement, clearly categorizing them, along with villages, as a type of rural populated place. The law also merged the two categories that existed de facto in Ukraine.

The 2023 law "About the order to solve separate issues of the administrative and territorial system of Ukraine", defines a rural settlement as a populated place with predominantly private housing and having a total population of at least 5,000 people.^[1][2][3]

According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, there were 1,266 rural settlements in Ukraine. This excludes then-classified urban-type settlements, which were later abolished and reclassified as rural settlements in 2020.^{[citation needed]}