Bessarabia or Basarabiia. Region bounded by the middle and lower Dnister River in the north and east, the Prut River in the west, and the mouth of the Danube River and the Black Sea in the south. The area of the region is 45,600 sq km. Until the beginning of the 19th century the name Bessarabia referred only to the southern part of Bessarabia; later it was used for the entire region. Today Bessarabia is a part of Moldova, except for the northern part (the Khotyn region) and the southern part (the Akkerman region), which are settled by Ukrainians and comprise 14,400 sq km of the territory of Ukraine.

Because of its location between Ukraine and Romania and between Poland and the Balkans, Bessarabia has always served as a route between the west and the east. This fact has influenced its history and the composition of its population. Southern Bessarabia is strategically important, as it controls the mouth of the Danube River and access to the Black Sea.

Geography and economy. Bessarabia is a continuation of the Pokutian-Bessarabian Upland and the Black Sea Lowland. It consists of Tertiary strata (older strata appear only at the Dnister River) and is covered mainly by chernozem and loess. Except in its southern part, Bessarabia is hilly. From north to south it can be divided into four natural regions: (1) the Khotyn region, which reaches 465 m in elevation and is covered with beech forests; (2) the Beltsi Plain, a woodless, chernozem plain with an elevation up to 180–200 m; (3) the central region, which is a higher part of Bessarabia, reaching 430 m in the forested Kodry Upland; and (4) the Budzhak (Bugeac) Lowland, which extends to the Black Sea and the Danube River. The climate of Bessarabia is of the Black Sea type: the temperature rises as one moves southward, with an average annual temperature of 7.5–10.5°C (19–23°C in July, and -5°C to -2°C in January); the rainfall diminishes from 600 mm in the north to 300 mm in the south (the Budzhak Lowland suffers from drought). Forests cover only 5 percent of the land (in the north, in the Kodry Upland, and on the Dnister River). The rest of the land is cultivated steppe and forest-steppe.

Bessarabia is an agricultural land; 80 percent of its area is under cultivation, and 72 percent of the cultivated land (2.9 million ha) is devoted to the growing of grain (corn, wheat, barley) and sunflowers. Grape and orchard cultivation are well developed, especially in the Dnister Valley. Fishing is important in the south. Industry was poorly developed until the 1950s.