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The peninsula is bounded on the S and W by the Black Sea. The eastern tip of the Crimea is the Kerch peninsula, separated from the Taman peninsula (a projection of the mainland) by the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov.Simferopol is the capital of the Crimean autonmous republic. Other major cities include Sevastopol (an municipality with the status of an oblast), Kerch, Feodosiya, Yalta, and Yevpatoriya.
Some 70% of the Crimea’s population are ethnic Russians; the rest are mainly Ukrainians. Since 1989 there has also been a movement back to the area of native Tatars who had been exiled to central Asia in the Stalin era, and they now form about a tenth of the population.
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