Khotyn

Khotyn is a city in Dniester Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast, in western Ukraine, south-west of Kamianets-Podilskyi. It stands on cliffs above the right, south-western bank of the Dniester River in the historical region of Bessarabia, and it hosts the administration of the Khotyn urban hromada. The census of 2001 counted 11,124 residents, and the estimate for 2022 was 8,936. The city is best known for the Khotyn Fortress, built in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, with a new fortress begun in 1325 and major improvements in the 1380s and 1460s, and for two fifteenth century works of the Moldavian ruler Stephen the Great, the Prince Palace and the clock tower. Khotyn passed through many states, among them Kievan Rus, the Principality of Moldavia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire, which ruled it directly from 1711 to 1812, the Russian Empire, Romania and the Soviet Union, before becoming part of independent Ukraine in 1991.