The Kherson Governorate, known until 1803 as the Nikolaev Governorate, was a province (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, with its centеr in Kherson. The governorate encompassed in area and had a population of 2,733,612 inhabitants. At the time of the census in 1897, it bordered the Podolia Governorate to the northwest, the Kiev Governorate to the north, the Poltava Governorate to the northeast, the Yekaterinoslav Governorate to the east, the Taurida Governorate to the southeast, the Black Sea to the south, and the Bessarabia Governorate to the west. It roughly corresponds to what is now most of Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad and Odesa Oblasts and some parts of Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts.
The economy of the governorate was mainly based on agriculture. During the grain harvest, thousands of agricultural laborers from the parts of the Empire found work in the area. The industrial part of the economy, consisting primarily of flour milling, distilling, metalworking industry, iron mining, beet-sugar processing, and brick industry, was underdeveloped.
Administrative divisions
The governorate bordered Bessarabia Governorate to the west, with Kyiv and Poltava Governorates to the north, to the east could be found Yekaterinoslav Governorate, and in the southward direction was located Taurida Governorate.
From 1809, the governorate consisted of five uyezds: Khersonsky Uyezd, Aleksandriysky Uyezd, Ovidiopol, Tiraspolsky Uyezd, and Yelisavetgradsky Uyezd. The city of Odesa carried a special status. In 1825, Odessky Uyezd and in 1834, Ananyevsky Uyezd were added into the territorial division of the Kherson Governorate. A seventh uyezd – Bobrynets, existed from 1828 to 1865. The cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv (in 1803–1861) and their surrounding vicinity were governed separately: Odessa by a gradonachalnik (), answerable directly to the tsar and (from 1822) the governor-general of Novorossiya and Bessarabia, and Nikolayev by a military governor.
In 1920, while being under the Bolshevik rule, the governorate's territory, , was divided to form the newer Odessa Governorate. The Kherson Governorate was renamed Mykolaiv Governorate in 1921, and in 1922 – merged with the Odessa Governorate. In 1925, the Odessa Governorate was abolished, and its territory was divided into six okruhas: Kherson, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Pershotravneve, and Zinoviivske. In 1932, much of this territory was incorporated into the new Odesa Oblast, now an administrative division of the modern Ukrainian nation, which was divided to form the Mykolaiv Oblast.
Principal cities
From the Russian Census of 1897
Odessa – 403,815 (Russian – 198,233, Jewish – 124,511, Ukrainian – 37,925) Nikolayev – 92,012 (Russian – 61,023, Jewish – 17,949, Ukrainian – 7,780) Yelizavetgrad – 61,488 (Jewish – 23,256, Russian – 21,301, Ukrainian – 14,523) Kherson – 59,076 (Russian – 27,902, Jewish – 17,162, Ukrainian – 11,591) Tiraspol – 31,616 (Russian – 14,013, Jewish – 8,568, Ukrainian – 3,708) Ananiv – 16,684 (Ukrainian – 7,205, Romanian – 4,174, Jewish – 3,514) Voznesensk – 15,748 (Jewish – 5,879, Ukrainian – 5,644, Russian – 2,583) Bobrinets – 14,281 (Ukrainian – 9,529, Jewish – 3,464, Russian – 837) Aleksandriya – 14,007 (Ukrainian – 7,658, Jewish – 3,687, Russian – 2,364) Beryslav – 12,149 (Ukrainian – 8,852, Jewish – 2,639, Russian – 524) Dubossary – 12,089 (Jewish – 5,326, Romanian – 3,383, Ukrainian – 2,841) Novogeorgiyevsk – 11,594 (Russian – 6,631, Ukrainian – 3,372, Jewish – 1,424) Ochakov – 10,786 (Ukrainian – 5,204, Russian – 3,508, Jewish – 1,430) Novomirgorod – 9,364 (Russian – 7,025, Jewish – 1,617, Ukrainian – 572) Grigoriopol – 7,605 (Romanian – 3,740, Russian – 1,832, Jewish – 832) Olviopol – 6,884 (Ukrainian – 5,022, Jewish – 1,480, Russian – 271) Ovidiopol – 5,187 (Ukrainian – 2,785, Russian – 1,997, Jewish – 387) Mayaky – 4,575 (Russian – 2,865, Ukrainian – 944, Jewish – 644)