The history of Dnipro starts with the human settlement of the city, which is first attested in the Neolithic period. In the Antiquity, the area of the future city was ruled by Scythians and a number of other tribes. In the Middle Ages, an Orthodox monastery existed on one of the islands on the Dneper, which now lays in the city borders. The region was devastated by the Mongol invasion of Rus' and later came under the influence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During this period, settlements of Zaporozhian Cossacks appeared on the lands of modern-day Dnipro, and a Polish fortress was constructed on one of the rapids south of the city.
After the Cossack rebellion of 1648, the area came under the rule of Zaporozhian Sich, a self-governed republic of Ukrainian Cossacks. 
After the Treaty of Andrusovo, the Zaporozhian Sich came under joint Muscovite–Polish protectorate, and according to the Treaty of Perpetual Peace (1686) the Sich came under control of the Tsardom of Russia. In the 18th century, the Lower Dnieper area was a scene of numerous wars between the Russian Empire, Crimean Tatars and the Ottomans. Ukrainian Cossack troops played a key role in the Russian conquest and colonization of the former Wild Fields and the incorporation of the Black Sea region into the Russian Empire. To facilitate the assimilation of the newly acquired territories, empress Catherine the Great abolished the Cossack autonomy in Ukraine and founded new settlements to increase the imperial influence. One of these settlements, founded on the territory of Zaporozhian sloboda Polovytsia received the name of Yekaterinoslav ( – "Katerynoslav"). This event started the history of future Dnipro as a major urban centre.
In the late 18th to early 19th century, Yekaterinoslav (between 1796 and 1802 known as Novorossiysk, was the centre of first Novorossiya and later Yekaterinoslav Governorate. With the start of industrialization in the mid-19th century, the city became a major centre of heavy industry. A number of scientific institutions were founded in Yekaterinoslav, and it became an influential centre of culture. The city's population before the Russian Revolution was multinational, with the majority of the population consisting of Russians, Jews and Ukrainians, but minorities of Poles, Germans and other ethnicities of the Russian Empire were also prominent. A number of ethnic conflicts emerged during this time, including the pogroms during the 1905 revolution.
After the February Revolution and abdication of the tsar, a local council ("soviet") was formed in the city. This time was marked by rivalry between Russian Bolsheviks and Ukrainian nationalists and Social Democrats. The former wished to preserve Ukraine under the rule of Russia, to use its resources for the future world revolution; the latter wished Ukraine to receive autonomous rights. As a result, after the Bolshevik Coup in Russia, which local Communists supported, Katerynoslav became a place of fighting, which comprised a part of Ukrainian War of Independence and the wider Russian Civil War. Anarchist forces led by Nestor Makhno, as well as German and Austro-Hungarian troops, also played a role in fighting over the city. Finally, in 1919 the Communist installed its control over the city as part of the new de-jure independent Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
After 1922 Katerynoslav became part of the newly founded Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was one of the nominally autonomous member republics. In 1926 the city was renamed to Dnipropetrovsk ( – "Dnepropetrovsk"). Under the Soviet rule, the city continued to developed as an industrial centre, especially in branches of metallurgy, machine-building and chemical industry. Processes of industrialization led to increased migration from surrounding rural areas, which contributed to Ukrainization. By 1939, more than half of Dnipropetrovsk's population were of Ukrainian ethnicity. During the Second World War the city was occupied by Nazi Germany, and most of local Jews were exterminated as part of the Holocaust.
After the war Dnipropetrovsk became a major centre of Soviet military industry, and produced a number of prominent politicians and functionaries who held a number of important positions in the Soviet, and later Ukrainian government (see Dnipropetrovsk clan). The city was also infamous as one of the centres of punitive psychiatry in the USSR. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 Dnipropetrovsk became part of independent Ukraine. It has been known as a powerhouse of banking and trade, as well as a major administrative and political centre. According to the Ukrainian laws on Decommunization, in 2016 the city was renamed to Dnipro.
Early history.
Human settlements in current Dnipropetrovsk Oblast date from the Paleolithic era. According to archeological finds, in the Paleolithic period (7—3 thousand "Anno Domini") human settlements appear near the Aptekarska brook in what is now Chechelivskyi District and on Monastyrskyi Island. A Neolithic stonecrafter's house has been excavated in one of Dnipro's city parks. In the Bronze Age the area was settled by diverse tribes. Traces of Cimmerian settlements during the Bronze Age have been found near today's Taras Shevchenko Park. The area of modern Dnipro was part of the Scythian empire from approximately the 1st century BC until the 3rd century BC. During the Migration Period (300–800) nomadic tribes of the Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, and Magyars passed through the lands of the Dnieper region, they came into contact with local agricultural East Slavs.
The area of modern Dnipro was part of the Kievan Rus' (882–1240). The region witnessed fighting between the armies of Kievan Rus' and Khazars, Pechenegs, Tork people and Cumans. In the 13th century the Dnieper region was devastated during the Mongol Empire conquest of Kievan Rus'. The area of modern Dnipro city was incorporated into the Mongol's khanate Golden Horde.
In the 15th century the area became part of the Kiev Voivodeship (1471–1565) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Archeological finds in today's Dnipro's urban district Samarskyi District suggest that the important river crossing was a trading settlement from at least 1524. In 1635, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth built the Kodak Fortress above the Dnieper Rapids at "Kodaky" on the south-eastern outskirts of modern Dnipro near the current Kaidatsky Bridge, only to have it destroyed within months by the Cossacks of Ivan Sulyma. Rebuilt in 1645, it was captured by Zaporozhian Sich in 1648.
Around the fortress a settlement emerged that became a town in Kodak Palanka (province) of the Zaporizhian Sich called New Kodak. Cossacks often hid the true number of the population to reduce taxation and other obligations, but according to documentary evidence, it can be assumed that the population of New Kodak was at least 3,000 people. The fortress was garrisoned by Cossacks until the Sich, allied with the Ottoman Empire and their Tartar vassals, drove out the encroaching Tsardom of Russia. Under the terms of the Russian withdrawal—the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711—the Kodak fortress was demolished.
In the mid-1730s the fortress and Russians returned, living in an uneasy cohabitation with local cossacks. From mid-century they co-existed with the Zaporozhian sloboda (or "free settlement") of "Polovytsia" located on the site of today's Central Terminal and the "Ozyorka" farmers market.
In the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) the Zaporozhian cossacks allied with Empress Catherine II. No sooner had they assisted the Russians to victory than they faced an imperial ultimatum to disband their confederation. The liquidation of the Sich destroyed their political autonomy and saw the incorporation of their lands into the new governates of Novorossiya. In 1784, Catherine ordered the foundation of new city, commonly referred to at the time as Katerynoslav.
In 2001 the seal of Kodak Palanka became the central element of Dnipro's coat of arms and Dnipro's official flag.
Imperial city.
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Historical affiliations
  Russian Empire 1776–1917 ;br ;
 Ukrainian People's Republic 1917–1918 ;br ;
∟ "autonomous part of the Russian Republic" ;br ;
 Ukrainian State 1918 ;br ;
 Ukrainian People's Republic 1918–1920 ;br ;
 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 1920–1941 ;br ;
∟ "part of the Soviet Union from 1922" ;br ;
 Reichskommissariat Ukraine 1941–1944 ;br ;
∟ "part of German-occupied Europe" ;br ;
 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 1944–1991 ;br ;
∟ "part of the Soviet Union" ;br ;
 Ukraine 1991–present ;br ;
Establishment of Catherine's city.
The first written mention of a town in the Russian Empire called Yekaterinoslav can be found in a report from Azov Governor Vasily Chertkov to Grigory Potemkin on 23 April 1776. He wrote "The provincial city called Yekaterinoslav should be the best convenience on the right side of the Dnieper River near Kaydak..." (Which referred to New Kodak). In 1777, a town named Yekaterinoslav ("the glory of Catherine"), was built to the north of the present-day city at the confluence of the Samara and Kilchen rivers. The site was badly chosen – spring waters transformed the city into a bog. The surviving settlement was later renamed Novomoskovsk.
The territory of modern Dnipro, despite the modern-day city's size, still has not expanded to encompass the territory of (Chertkov's) Yekaterinoslav of 1776. On 22 January 1784 Russian Empress Catherine the Great signed an Imperial Ukase directing that "the gubernatorial city under name of Yekaterinoslav be moved to the right bank of the Dnieper river near Kodak". The new city would serve Grigory Potemkin as a Viceregal seat for the combined Novorossiya and Azov Governorates.
In 1778, the town was used to hold resettled Greek and Armenian Christians from the Emigration of Christians from Crimea in 1778. Over the next few years, the Armenians were resettled to Nakhichevan-na-Donu, whereas the Greeks were resettled to the vicinity of the city of Mariupol.
On 20 May [O.S. 9 May] 1787, in the course of her celebrated Crimean journey, the Empress laid the foundation stone of the Transfiguration Cathedral in the presence of Austrian Emperor Joseph II, Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski, and the French and English ambassadors. Potemkin's grandiose plans for a third Russian imperial capital alongside Moscow and Saint Petersburg included a viceregal palace, a university (Potemkin envisioned Yekaterinoslav as the 'Athens of southern Russia'), courts of law and a botanical garden, were frustrated by a renewal of the Russo-Turkish war in 1787, by bureaucratic procrastination, defective workmanship, and theft, Potemkin's death in 1791 and that of his imperial patroness five years later.
In 1815 a government official described the town as "more like some Dutch [Mennonite] colony then a provincial administrative centre". The cathedral, much reduced in size, was completed in 1835.
Disputed year of foundation.
Scholarship concerning the foundation of the city has been subject to political considerations and dispute. In 1976, to have the bicentenary of the city coincide with the 70th anniversary of the birth of Soviet party leader, and regional native son, Leonid Brezhnev, the date of the city's foundation was moved back from the visit Russian Empress Catherine II in 1787, to 1776.
Following Ukrainian independence, local historians began to promote the idea of a town emerging in the 17th century from Cossack settlements, an approach aimed at promoting the city's Ukrainian identity. They cited the chronicler of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Dmytro Yavornytsky, whose "History of the City of Ekaterinoslav" completed in 1940 was authorised for publication only in 1989, the era of Glasnost.
Growth as an industrial centre.
While into the late nineteenth century the principal business of the town remained the processing of agricultural raw materials, there was an early state-sponsored effort to promote manufacture. In 1794 the government supported two factories: a textile factory that was transferred from the town of Dubrovny Mogilev Governorate and a silk-stockings factory that was brought from the village of Kupavna near Moscow. In 1797 the textile factory employed 819 permanent workers, 378 of whom were women and 115 children. The silk stocking workers, the majority being women, were serfs bought at an auction for 16,000 roubles. Conditions, as Potemkin himself was forced to admit, were harsh, with many of the workers dying from malnutrition and exhaustion.
From 1797 to 1802, while serving under the Emperor Paul I as the administrative centre of a centre of the Novorossiya Governorate, the settlement was officially known as "Novorossiysk."
Despite the bridging of the Dnieper in 1796, commerce was slow to develop. 1832 saw the establishment of the small Zaslavsky iron-casting factory, the town's first metallurgical enterprise. Industrialisation gathered apace in the 1880s with the establishment of the first railway connections. Rail construction responded to the enterprise of two men: John Hughes, a Welsh businessman who built an iron works at Yuzovka in 1869–72, and developed the Donbas coal deposits; and the Russian geologist Alexander Pol, who in 1866 had discovered the Kryvyi Rih (then