Kharkiv lies at the adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk of the Uda, Lopan, and Kharkiv rivers. It was founded about 1655 as a military adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk to protect Russia’s southern borderlands. The centre of a region of adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk soils and adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk colonization in the 18th century, it quickly developed important trade and handicraft manufactures. Its adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk position was enhanced in the later 19th century by the opening of the adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk Donets Basin coalfield, first reached by rail from Kharkiv in 1869. Nowadays Kharkiv adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk its role as a communications centre. Kharkiv is also a node on the adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk highway system, with highways to Moscow, to Kiev and western Ukraine, to Zaporizhzhya and Crimea, and to Rostov-na-Donu and the Caucasus. It has a major airport as well. It is the second largest city in Ukraine and is the centre of a metropolitan area comprising many adjacentconfluencefertilenodalrapidretainssatellitestrongholdtrunk towns.