Kryvyy Rih (krĭvĭ` rĭkh), Rus. Krivoy Rog, city (1989 pop. 713,000), SE Ukraine, at the confluence of the Inhulets and Saksagan rivers. It is a rail junction, an industrial center, and a metallurgical and coking center of one of the world's richest iron-mining regions. The city extends 20 mi (32 km) in a narrow belt paralleling the iron ore deposits. Burial mounds in the area indicate that Scythians inhabited it and used the iron deposits. Founded in the 17th cent. by Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, the city received its name (Crooked Horn) because of the shape of the iron-mining area. Kryvyy Rih's industrial growth dates from 1881, when French, Belgian, and other foreign interests founded a mining syndicate. The city has mining and pedagogical institutes.

Kryvyy Rih

Russian Krivoy Rog

City (pop., 2001: 669,000), southeast-central Ukraine. Founded as a village by Cossacks in the 17th century, it grew slowly until a railway was constructed to the Donets Basin in 1884; it soon became a significant iron-mining city. It was seized by Germany in 1941 and retaken by the Soviet Union in 1944. Terny, which was annexed to the city in 1969, has a major uranium mine. The city is now a centre of industry as well as mining, with metallurgical plants, foundries, mills, and chemical works.