Geography of Ukrainian lands in scientific heritage of famous German geographer Anton Busching

A. Busching is one of the greatest European geographers of second half of the XVIII century. The most fundamental work – Neue Erdbeschreibung oder Universal Geographie (1754) – brought him worldwide fame only during his lifetime was reprinted eight times and has been translated into almost all European languages. A. Busching systematized geographic information is very valuable source of historical geography of Ukraine. Each new reissue of the information (including statistics) A. Busching meticulously update, detailed and changed with the times era. In the 60’s gave a lengthy description of Ukrainian lands Red Ruthenia as part of the Kingdom of Poland. In the 70’s he was first among European geographers who published a geographical description of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In the 80’s A. Busching published a series of statistical-geographical studies of new data on the geography of population, economy, communications and commerce Western, Central and Southern Ukrainian lands. The role and contribution of A. Busching in a geographical study of Ukraine in the second half of the seventeenth century are considered. In 1762–1763 A. Busching introduced to the world geographical community a new generalizing geographical name of the country, which was known from earlier treatises as Kievan Rus, Red Ruthenia, Cossacks’ province. The title of the relevant section of it preserved colonial official name given in 1764 by Catherine II disbanded it Hetman state – Little Russia. But below its geographical characteristics, this definition was begun: “The country of the Cossacks, usually called Ukraine...” A. Busching filed a brief geographical reference of all provinces and major cities of Ukraine. Busching’s books interesting information about her administrative-territorial structure, number cities, geography of trade, state of the river and road transport, formation centres manufactured crafts etc. A. Busching in 1772–1775 was the first systematized scientific community for world geography major geographic information system on the new administrative-territorial unit Europe – the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria – successor of earlier Principality of Galicia-Volyn Rus and Rus country. A. Busching is the author of the first survey maps of Europe that reflect this geographical unit. Content and factual materials of the scientific heritage of geographer were critically analysed and modified. It is shown the value of certain works of the scientist for historical-geographical studios and territorial development of Ukrainian lands that period. Key words: Ukraine, the Ukrainian lands, historical geography, scientific heritage, A. Busching.