It is situated about 50 km (31.07 mi) southeast of Zaporizhzhia (formerly Aleksandrovsk), and almost the same distance north of the Molochna Kolonia (literally, 'milk colony').

Among these was Johann Heinrich (Ivan Andreievitch) Janzen, who built two large steam-powered flour mills and encouraged other Mennonite businessmen to follow his example.

At the end of the nineteenth century, of a population of 10,000, there were only about 200 "Germans" in total (called niemsty), which included approximately equal numbers of Mennonites and Lutherans.

[citation needed] Peter Kondratyevitch Pavlenko was principal of the Halbstadt Zentralschule in 1909 and 1910, also teaching in the areas of mathematics and pedagogy; before that he had been on the faculty of the secondary school in Orikhiv.

In 1918–1919 Orikhiv was in the centre of the area controlled by the anarchist Nestor Makhno, so it likely suffered the usual consequences of being occupied by his army.

Orikhiv was the base from which the Red Army surged southward to finally defeat the Mennonite Selbstschutz – eventually leading to the capitulation in Gnadenfeld, Molotschna (today Bohdanivka).

[5][6] On 21 May, local media reported that as a result of the Russian shelling, the gymnasium, and the building of the city executive committee were destroyed.

[16] In January 2024, it was reported that not a single high-rise building in Orikhiv was left standing and that the city has been without gas and electricity since the second month of the invasion.

[17] On 21 February 2024, a Russian 550-pound glide bomb tore through the dome of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary located in the center of Orikhiv.

[18] In March 2024, Orikhiv was characterized by The Economist as a "ghost town", as an estimated 1,000 civilians remained in the city, with every building said to have been either damaged or destroyed.