abstract:Zaporizhia (; (Wild Fields or Savage Steppe), Russian: Запоро́жье, Zaporozhye) is a historical region in central Ukraine below the Dnieper River rapids (porohy, poroża, hence the name, literally "territory beyond the rapids"). From the 16th to 18th centuries Zaporizhia was a semi-independent quazi-republican Cossack territory with the centre at the Zaporizhian Sich.