Nikopol

Nikopol, town, Bulgaria

Nikopol (nēkô`pôl), town (1993 pop. 4,897), N Bulgaria, a port on the Danube River bordering Romania. Farming, viticulture, and fishing are the chief occupations. Founded in 629 by Byzantine emperor Heraclius, Nikopol (then Nicopolis) became a flourishing trade and cultural center of the second Bulgarian kingdom. In 1396 at Nikopol the Ottoman Turks under Beyazid I defeated an army of crusaders led by King Sigismund of Hungary (later Emperor Sigismund). The Turkish victory removed the last serious obstacle to a Turkish advance on Christian Europe. However, when Timur defeated Beyazid (1402), Europe gained a respite. The Turks strongly fortified Nikopol, which was strategically important during the Russo-Turkish wars (18th–19th cent.), but the city later declined.

---

Nikopol, city, Ukraine

Nikopol (nyĭkô`pəl), city (1989 pop. 158,000), SE Ukraine, on the Dnieper River. It is a rail terminus and the industrial center of one of the world's richest manganese-mining areas. The city has metallurgical plants, machine tool factories, and food-processing and brewing industries. Nikopol stands on the site of one of the earliest trade routes and strategic crossing points over the Dnieper. Manganese production at Nikopol became important in the 19th cent.

---

Nikopol’ 

a city under oblast jurisdiction in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, located on the Dnieper River on the Kakhovka Reservoir. River port with a station on the Zapo-rozh’e-Krivoi Rog railroad line. Population, 137,000 (1973). Nikopol’ is a major manganese ore mining center. The Nikopol’ Southern Pipe Metallurgical Plant is located there. The city also produces steel alloys, construction and road-building equipment, boilers, machinery, and reinforced-concrete structural members. Other local industries include machine repair, clothing manufacture, and food processing.

The general engineering department of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute is located in Nikopol’, as well as technicums for metallurgy, water management, and agricultural mechanization. The city also has a school of medicine and a teacher-training school and a Museum of local lore. Nikopol’ arose on the site of the village of Nikitino, which became part of Novorossiia Province in 1774. The village was made a city in 1782.