General · EdgepediaOctober 21, 20263 min read

Hlyboka Raion

Hlyboka Raion (Глибоцький район) was a raion of Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine, with its administrative center in the urban-type settlement of Hlyboka.³ It ceased to exist on 17 July 2020, when the Verkhovna Rada's Resolution No. 807-IX liquidated the oblast's eleven rayons and replaced them with three new ones: Vyzhnytsia, Chernivtsi, and Dnistrovskyi.¹^•²^•¹^•⁷^•² Local government in the area continues through the Hlyboka settlement hromada, a municipality of 19,271 people covering 36.710 km² along the Siret River.⁴

The raion ceased to exist in July 2020, when Ukraine's nationwide administrative reform replaced the oblast's eleven districts with three larger ones¹^•².

Key fact	Detail
Administrative center	Urban-type settlement of Hlyboka, 2001 population 9,287³
Abolition	Liquidated by the Verkhovna Rada's Resolution No. 807-IX of 17 July 2020; Chernivtsi Oblast's 11 rayons were replaced by 3 new ones¹^•²
Transport links	Direct access to the M19 (E85) highway, the Vadul-Siret railway junction, and proximity to the Porubne–Siret and Krasnoilsk–Vikovu de Sus border checkpoints⁴

The raion center

It was first mentioned in historical sources in 1438, and from 1918 to 1940, under Romanian rule, it was called Adîncata³. It has been an urban-type settlement since 1956⁵. The town is a railway junction and has a food industry and a glass industry³.

The railway arrived early: in 1869 the Austro-Hungarian government began building the Chernivtsi–Vadul-Siret–Suceava line, which passed through Hlyboka⁶. The area around the tracks took the local name Shkarp, probably of German origin⁶.

The Skibniewski family shaped the town's modern layout. In 1892 Bronisław Skibniewski (1830–1904) bought the estate around Hlyboka from Prince Adam Sapieha, and the family held it until the Second World War; the last owner was Bronisław's son Oleksandr⁵. The Skibniewski Palace, now on the grounds of the district children's hospital, and the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, built in 1906 at the family's expense and closed from 1944 to 1992, remain the town's main landmarks⁵.

History

The place where Hlyboka lies was once called Chorna Poliana, and battles between Moldovan and Polish troops took place there in 1359 and 1497⁵. Polish colonists left lasting traces in the settlement⁵.

The raion's territory followed the shifting borders of the Bukovina region. Hlyboka has been the center of the Hlyboka district since 1940⁵.

Population and languages

The raion lay in a linguistically mixed border region.

Beyond the center, one village of the former Hlyboka Raion named Moldovan as its native language².

Abolition in the 2020 reform

On 17 July 2020 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Resolution No. 807-IX "On the Formation and Liquidation of Rayons", which liquidated all 490 existing rayons in the country and formed 136 new ones¹^•⁷. Hlyboka Raion (Глибоцький район) appeared in the resolution's list of the eleven liquidated rayons of Chernivtsi Oblast¹. In their place, three new rayons were formed in the oblast: Vyzhnytsia, Chernivtsi, and Dnistrovskyi². Under the resolution, no elections were held for the district councils of the liquidated rayons, and their deputies' powers ended when the newly elected councils took office¹.

Local government in the area continues through the Hlyboka settlement hromada, a municipality of 19,271 people covering 36.710 km² along the Siret River⁴. The municipality occupies a cross-border position within the Chernivtsi–Siret–Suceava triangle, with an economic profile that combines agriculture, river recreation, and logistics tied to the Vadul-Siret railway junction's expanding freight capacity into Romania⁴.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Places and geography › Administrative and cadastral territories › Intermediate territorial subdivisions › Intermediate subdivisions of Russia and the post-Soviet states › Raions of Galicia and Bukovina

Initially written Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 25, 2026

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