The morphological nucleus of the Ukraine is the closed group of pleateaus, which extends from the country at the foot of the Carpathians and the Polish part of the Vistula region to the Sea of Azof. Pontian Plateau or Avratinian Ridge are the commonly used but incorrect names of this plateau group. The first designation might do, but the second transfers the name of a little destitute hamlet at the source of the Sbruch to a territory of hundreds of thousands of square miles. We shall, therefore, select for this plateau group the name Ukrainian Plateau Group.
It forms a compact whole between the Carpathians and the Dnieper and is divided into the following individual sections: The Rostoch, between the San and Buh Rivers; Volin, between the Boh and the Teterev; Podolia, between the Dniester and the Boh; the Pocutian — Bessarabian Plateau, between the Dniester and the Prut; the Dnieper Plateau, between the Boh and the Dnieper. The plateau character continues at the rapids section of this river on the left bank, where, at some distance, the last member of the Ukrainian Plateau Group lies — the Donetz Plateau.
The plateau group of the Ukraine is bordered on the north and south by two plain districts. The northern district consists of adjoining lowlands — Pidlassye, Polissye, and the Dnieper plain — and their extensions along the Donetz; the southern district is made up of the long stretch of the Pontian steppe-plain, which, in the country at the foot of the Caucasus, merges into the Caspian desertsteppe.
Beyond the northern plain district, Ukrainian territory does not extend, except in the Don region, where it embraces the southern spurs of the Central Russian Plateau.
Besides these plateau and plain regions the Ukraine takes in also parts of three mountain systems of the European continent. The Ukraine is the only country of Eastern Europe which extends over into the region of the European mountains of plication. Parts of the Carpathians, the little Yaila chain of Crimea, and the western parts of the Caucasus lie, together with their environs, in Ukrainian territory.
From this general survey of the surface configuration of the Ukraine, we can easily see that more than ninetenths of the surface of this land is taken up by plains and plateaus. Nine-tenths of the Ukrainians have certainly never seen a mountain and do not even know what one looks like. Expressive of this circumstance is the fact that in the wide plateau and plain region of the Ukraine the most insignificant hills bear the high-sounding name of "mountain." But, despite this, the Ukraine also has its share in the three mountain systems of Europe — the Carpathians, the Yaila, and the Caucasus. All three were formed thru plication of the rock-layers.
The vast plication-formed mountain range of the Caucasus, even in the small part belonging to Ukrainian territory, attains an alpine height; the scenery of the Yaila along the Crimean Riviera is wonderful, but the Carpathians, altho not as lofty as the Caucasus and not of such scenic beauty as the Yaila, are the dearest to the heart of the Ukrainian. For the Ukrainian nation expanded in the Caucasus only a century ago and has but just reached the Yaila. And the Eastern Carpathians have for more than a thousand years been a Ukrainian mountain range.
Still, hardly one-third of the 1300 km. curve of the Carpathians belongs to Ukrainian national territory. Toward the west the Carpathians are inhabited by Poles and Slovaks; in the east and south by the Roumanians.
The boundary-posts of the Ukrainian territory extend in the west beyond the famous defile of Poprad. From the rounded peaks of the mountain country where the last Ukrainian villages lie, one sees rising at a very short distance the imposing range of the Tatra; still nearer lie the cliffs of the Pienini, famous geologically as well as for their scenery. In the eastern part of the Carpathian chain, Ukrainian territory reaches the Prislop pass, which connects the valleys of the Golden Bistritz and the Visheva (Visso). To the Ukraine, then, belongs the sandstone district of the Carpathians at that point where it is highest and most developed. It is called simply the "wooded Carpathians."