This 1821 map of Ekaterinoslav Province is from a larger work, Geograficheskii atlas Rossiiskoi imperii, tsarstva Pol'skogo i velikogo kniazhestva Finliandskogo (Geographical atlas of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland), containing 60 maps of the Russian Empire. Compiled and engraved by Colonel V.P. Piadyshev, it reflects the detailed mapping carried out by Russian military cartographers in the first quarter of the 19th century. The map shows population centers (seven gradations by size), postal stations, roads (four types), state, provincial and district borders, factories, monasteries, forts, and customs houses. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends and place-names are in Russian and French. The territory depicted on the map lies within present-day eastern Ukraine. The Ekaterinoslav region for centuries was effectively split by Poland-Lithuania and the Crimean Tatars, with the Dnieper River as a natural border. As the Cossack Hetmanate took shape in the 18th century, the region became the heartland for the Zaporozhian Sich (center of autonomous Cossack territory from about the 1550s to 1775) and a strong Cossack culture. Polish and Lithuanian interests continued to govern regional affairs, until Bohdan Khmelnytskyi sought a Russian military alliance in the Pereyaslav Agreement in 1654, which brought the closer integration of the area within the Russian Empire. The Cossacks helped the Russians to fend off Polish control of the region, which became a bulwark against the Crimean Tatars and Ottoman Turkey. Catherine the Great gained key parts of the northern Black Sea region after the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji (also seen as Kucuk Kaynarca, 1774) with the Ottomans. The city of Ekaterinoslav (present-day Dnepropetrovsk) was named in honor of Catherine the Great (literally, “glory of Catherine”). Catherine’s favorite, Grigorii Potemkin, became the new governor-general for the new Russian region, which was called Novorossiya (New Russia).