Melitopol

Melitopol lies on the Molochna River, north of the Sea of Azov, in a steppe once used by Nogai communities. The locality was known as Kiziyar, and Russian troops built a redoubt here in 1769, with Zaporozhian Cossacks serving in its garrison. The river and the road across the steppe gave the site a place in the changing settlement of the northern Azov region.

After the creation of the Taurida administration in 1784, the surrounding lands were opened to new settlement. In 1814 officials laid out land for houses and a church at Kiziyar and permitted families from nearby Tymoshivka to settle there. The settlement became known as Novooleksandrivka. Its later name, Melitopol, recalls a Greek expression for a city of honey, and was also used for the surrounding district before it became the town's name.