Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Lore & Background

Before the accident the area, the heartland of the Polesia region, was home to 120,000 people in the cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat and in 187 smaller communities. A government commission chose the 30 km radius from Reactor 4 as the evacuation area, a choice described as rather arbitrary. The zone was at first divided into three subzones by distance from the reactor.

Later in 1986, once updated contamination maps were available, the zone was redrawn into three areas by dose rate. Evacuees were never to return to the most contaminated area; they might return to the second once radiation levels normalised; and from the third, children and pregnant women were evacuated from the summer of 1986. In all, 91,200 people were eventually evacuated. In November 1986 control of activity in the zone passed to a new production association based in the evacuated city of Chernobyl.

Reader's Guide

Public access is restricted in order to keep people out of hazardous areas, limit the spread of contamination and allow radiological and ecological monitoring. The zone is managed by a state agency of Ukraine, while the power plant, its sarcophagus and the New Safe Confinement are administered separately. It adjoins the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve in neighbouring Belarus.

The zone is one of the most radioactively contaminated areas on Earth. It has also become a sanctuary for wildlife, with some of the thickest forests in Ukraine, mainly because people have been absent since 1986, and it attracts both scientists and disaster tourists. In February 2019 talks were reported on adjusting its boundaries to reflect declining radioactivity in its outer areas.

Russia captured Chernobyl on 24 February 2022 and withdrew from the region by April 2022. The authorities of Ukraine have kept the zone closed to tourists since.

Did You Know?

• A memorial stands where an old oak known as the Cross Tree fell in 1996.
• Its settlements are still marked on maps, labelled as uninhabited.