Lviv (Ukrainian: Львів, translit. L’viv, pronounced [lʲʋiu̯] (About this sound listen); Russian: Львов, Polish: Lwów, pronounced [lvuf] (About this sound listen); German Lemberg; Latin: Leopolis; Ancient Greek: Λεόπολις Leópolis;) is the largest city in western Ukraine and the seventh-largest city in the country overall, with a population of around 728,350 as of 2016. Lviv is one of the main cultural centers of Ukraine.
Named in honor of the Leo, the eldest son of Daniel, King of Ruthenia, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (also called Kingdom of Rus’) from 1272 to 1349, when it was conquered by King Casimir III the Great who then became known as the King of Poland and Rus’. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1918, for a short time, it was the capital of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic. Between the wars, the city was known again as Lwów and was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic.
After World War II, it became part of the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin’s gift to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) and there was a population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine. In 1991, it became the independent nation of Ukraine.