It is the smallest oblast in Ukraine, representing 1.3% of Ukrainian territory, and is only larger than the city of Kyiv itself.

[6] Chernivtsi oblast was created on August 7, 1940, in the wake of the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

Archaeological sites in the region date back to 43,000-45,000 BC, with finds including a mammoth bone dwelling from the Middle Paleolithic.

In the Middle Ages, the region was inhabited by East Slavic tribes White Croats and Tivertsi.

[8] In 1775, two counties of Moldavia, since then known as Bukovina, were annexed by the Habsburg monarchy as part of the Austrian Empire and its final iteration Austria-Hungary.

Hertsa region was not included in the demands that the Soviet Union addressed to Romania, but was occupied at the same time.

Most of the occupied territories were organized on August 2, 1940, as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, while the remainder, including the Chenivtsi Oblast, which was formed on August 7, 1940, were included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

This and later deportations were primarily based on social class difference, it targeted intellectuals, people employed previously by the state, businessmen, clergymen, students, railworkers.

During World War II, when the region returned under the control of the Romanian administration, the Jewish community of the area was largely destroyed by the deportations to ghettos and Nazi concentration camps, where about 60% died.

Despite the anti-Semitic policies of the Ion Antonescu's government of Romania, the mayor of Cernăuți, Traian Popovici, now honored by Israel's Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, saved approximately 20,000 Jews.

In demographic terms, these war-time and post-war-time factors changed the region's ethnic composition.

Throughout the history of the region, there were no inter-ethnic clashes, while the city of Chernivtsi was known for its German-style architecture, for a highly cultivated society, and for ethnic tolerance.

These are At the locality level, the territory of the oblast is divided among 11 cities, 8 urban-type settlements, and 252 communes.

[11] According to the 2001 census, the majority of the population of the Chernivtsi region was Ukrainian-speaking (75.57%), and there were also Romanian (18.64%) and Russian (5.27%) speakers.

[14] By contrast, the number of self-identified ethnic Romanians has increased and so has their proportion of the population of the oblast (from 10.66% to 12.46%), and the process has continued after the 2001 census.

The rest of the population was 88,772 Jews, 46,946 Russians (among them an important community of Lipovans), around 35,000 Germans, 10,000 Poles, and 10,000 Hungarians.

After the Kingdom of Romania took control of the region during the war (1941–1944), the Jewish community of the area was largely destroyed by the deportations to ghettos and concentration camps.