Odesa / Odessa is a city in southwestern Ukraine. It is is situated on terraced hills overlooking a small harbor, approximately 31 km (19 mi.) north of the estuary of the Dniester river and some 443 km (275 mi) south of the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

Odesa / Odessa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast (province) and a major port on the Black Sea. The current estimated population is around 1,012,500 (as of 2004).

The city has a mild and dry climate with average temperatures in January of -2 °C (29 °F), and July of 22 °C (73 °F).

The primary language spoken is Russian, with Ukrainian being less common despite its being an official language in Ukraine. The city is a mix of many nationalities and ethnic groups, including Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Greeks, Moldovans, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians, Turks, and Vietnamese, among others.

Odesa was officially founded in 1794 by order of empress Ekaterina II as a Russian naval fortress on the ruins of Khadjibey and was renamed Odesa by January 1795 (when its new name was first mentioned in official correspondence).

An ancient Greek colony had once occupied the site of the city. Numerous monuments of antiquity confirm links between this territory and the Eastern Mediterranean. In the Middle Ages these lands were a part of the Kievan Rus, Galich and Volyn Principality, the Golden Horde, the Great Lithuanian Principality, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century. In the course of Russian–Turkish wars these lands were captured by Russia at the end of the 18th century.

From 1819–1858 Odessa was a free port (porto franco). It became home to an extremely diverse population of Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Armenians, Italians, Frenchmen, Germans and traders representing many other European nationalities. Its cosmopolitan nature was documented by the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who lived in internal exile in Odessa between 1823–1824.

In 1905 Odessa was the site of a workers' uprising supported by the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin (also see Battleship Potemkin uprising) and Lenin's Iskra. Sergei Eisenstein's famous motion picture The Battleship Potemkin commemorated the uprising and included a scene where hundreds of Odessan citizens were murdered on the great stone staircase (now popularly known as the "Potemkin Steps"), in one of the most famous scenes in motion picture history. At the top of the steps, which lead down to the port, stands a statue of Richelieu. The actual massacre took place in streets nearby, not on the steps themselves, but the movie caused many to visit Odessa to see the site of the "slaughter". The "Odessa Steps" continue to be a tourist attraction in Odessa. The film was made at Odessa's Cinema Factory, one of the oldest cinema studios in the former Soviet Union.

During World War II Odessa was occupied by Romanian and German forces from 1941–1944. The city suffered severe damage and many casualties. Under the Axis occupation, approximately 60,000 Odessans (mostly Jews) were either massacred or deported. Many parts of Odessa were damaged during its fall and later recapture in April 1944, when the city was finally liberated by the Soviet Army. It was one of the first four Soviet cities to be awarded the title of "Hero City" in 1945.

Odessa is a popular tourist destination, with many therapeutic resorts in and around the city. The Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases & Tissue Therapy is one of the leading institutes for eye care. The Tolstoy, Vorontsov, and Potocki families owned palaces in Odessa, which can still be visited. The writer Isaac Babel was born in the city, which has also produced several famous musicians, including the violinists Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman and David Oistrakh, and the pianists Benno Moiseiwitsch, Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels. The chess player Efim Geller was born in the city. (All listed, except for Richter, are representatives of the city's Jewish community.)

Popular show-business people, like comedians, humorist writers' success in 1970s contributed to Odessa's established status of a "capital of Soviet humour". Later several humour festivals were established in the city, including the celebration of the April Fool's Day.

Most of the city's 19th century houses were built of limestone mined nearby. Abandoned mines were later used and broadened by local smugglers. This created a complicated labyrinth of underground tunnels beneath Odessa, known as "catacombs". They are a now a great attraction for extreme tourists. Such tours, however, are not officially sanctioned and are dangerous because the layout of the catacombs has not been fully mapped and the tunnels themselves are unsafe. These tunnels are a primary reason why subway was never built in Odessa.