Kiev, Kiew, or Khow, a government of European Russia, bounded N. by Minak, E. by Tchernigov and Poltava, S. by Kherson, S.W. and W. by Podolia and Volhynia; area 19,000 square miles. The general surface is flat or undulating, with some low ranges parallel to the river courses. The principal river is the Dnieper, which divides the province from Tchernigov and Poltava about 250 miles of its course. Its chief tributaries are the Pripyet, Testerev, Irpen, Studena, Ros, and Tiasmin. The climate is remark- ably temperate, though the summer heat is often extreme. The population, amounting in 1850 to 1,638,000, are chiefly occupied in agriculture and cattle-breeding. The peasants are mostly serfs. The vegetable productions include grain of all kinds, hemp, flax, and tobacco. Excellent timber grows extensively in the north. The cattle are large and of good breed, and are fattened in great numbers for exportation. The manufactures are unimportant, the most extensive being that of beetroot sugar. Trade is chiefly in the hands of the Jews, who are numerous.

the capital of the above government, is pictur- esquely situate on several eminences on the right bank of the Dnieper, 650 miles S. of St Petersburg. It consists of three different towns—the Old Town, the Petscherskoi, or New Fort, and the Podole, or Low Town—each separately fortified, but all surrounded by a common intrenchment. The old town is built on a steep hill, separated from the Petscherskoi by a ravine. This was the ancient residence of the grand dukes of Kieff, and contains the cathedral of St Sophia, founded in 1037 by Jaroslav Vladimirovitch, whose marble tomb is within the archiepiscopal palace, and the convent of St Michael. The Petscherskoi, or citadel, occupies a still higher eminence to the S. of the old town. It is very strongly fortified, and contains a large arsenal, the residences of the civil and military governors, and the famous monastery of Petscherskoi, said to have been founded by St Anthony in the ninth century. The chief object of interest within the walls of the monastery is the church of the Assumption, which is magnificently decorated internally, and is surmounted by a belfry 304 feet high, surrounded by seven turrets with gilt cupolas connected by gilded chains. In the catacombs are preserved the bodies of upwards of 100 Russian saints. This monastery is yearly visited by thousands of pilgrims. The Podole, or Low Town, which occupies the level between the hills and the river, is the largest, but least picturesque portion of the city, and is the residence of the middle classes and trading population. It is regularly built, with wide streets interspersed with trees, and contains an imperial palace, an ecclesiastical academy (founded 1661, and very largely attended), and an exchange, with a hall capable of accommodating 3000 persons. A magnificent suspension-bridge connects it with the opposite bank of the Dnieper, which sometimes overflows the lower part of the town.

Kieff is the seat of the governor-general of Little Russia, and of the Archbishop of Kieff and Galitz. The university of St Vladimir, founded in 1833, has a large library, museum, and observatory, and, in 1846, had about 80 professors and 600 students. The principal manufactures are earthenware and leather. There is a large trade with Odessa and the interior, and the great annual fair in January draws visitors from all parts of Europe. Pop. about 50,000.

This city is of unknown antiquity. In the ninth century it became the seat of the power founded by the Varangian Rurik. Here Christianity first found a footing among the Muscovite barbarians. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries it was the capital of the empire. After many reverses, and successive occupations by Poles, Lithuanians, and Tartars, it was finally ceded to Russia in 1686.