This 1822 map of Taurida 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 (six gradations by size), postal stations, roads (four types), provincial and district borders, customs houses, and forts. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends, the index of county names, and place-names are in Russian and French. This region experienced numerous invasions and migrations since Antiquity, by peoples who included Scythians, Sarmatians, and Goths. Most prominently, Greek and Roman settlements were established on the Crimean Peninsula. Later invaders included the Byzantine Empire, Kievan Rus’, the Golden Horde (and its successor state, the Crimean Khanate), and Ottoman Turkey. Orthodox Christianity may have gained a foothold in the lands of Rus’ through Crimea from Constantinople by the 9th to 10th centuries. Empress Catherine the Great later conquered this region from Ottoman Turkey, incorporating Crimea into the Russian Empire in 1783, along with adjoining parts of what became known as Novorossiya (New Russia). One of her key advisers and favorites, Prince Grigorii Potemkin, was named the governor-general of this larger region in 1774.