Yalta[a] (Russian and Ukrainian: Ялта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea.

It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black Sea, surrounded by the mountain range Ai-Petri.

The existence of Yalta was recorded in the 12th century by an Arab geographer, who described it as a Byzantine port and fishing settlement.

It became part of a network of Genoese trading colonies on the Crimean coast in the 14th century, when it was known as Etalita or Galita.

Prior to the annexation of the Crimea, the Crimean Greeks were moved to Mariupol in 1778; one of the villages they established nearby is also called Yalta.

Leo Tolstoy spent summers there and Anton Chekhov in 1898 bought a house (the White Dacha) here, where he lived until 1902; Yalta is the setting for Chekhov's short story, "The Lady with the Dog", and such prominent plays as The Three Sisters were written in Yalta.

In 1920, Vladimir Lenin issued a decree "On the Use of Crimea for the Medical Treatment of the Working People" which endorsed the region's transformation from a fairly exclusive resort area into a recreation facility for tired proletarians.

There were, in fact, few other places that Soviet citizens could come for a seaside holiday, as foreign travel was forbidden to all but a handful.

The longest trolleybus line in Europe goes from the train station in Simferopol to Yalta (almost 90 km).

Köppen classifies the city as humid subtropical (Cfa), bordering on a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa);[5] while the city's Trewartha class is oceanic (Do), barely missing the criteria for humid subtropical (Cf).

The main ethnic groups of Yalta are: Russians (65.5%), Ukrainians (25.7%), Belarusians (1.6%), and Crimean Tatars (1.3%).