Kiev, Ukraine:
Crimea, which voted overwhelmingly Sunday to become part of the Russian Federation, is a strategic Black Sea peninsula that was handed to Ukraine by a Soviet leader 60 years ago.
The region emerged as the epicentre of the crisis in Ukraine after the country's Russian-leaning president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February after months of pro-EU demonstrations in Kiev.
Crimea hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet and is home to many ethnic Russians wary of Ukraine's new leaders in Kiev.
- Krushchev's gift -
The territory, about the size of Belgium, is an agricultural region with vast vineyards and tobacco plantations. Crimea also draws tourists with its subtropical climate and seaside resorts.
Its history is marked by invasion and occupation, with Huns, Venetians, Byzantine Greeks and Ottoman Turks controlling its seaside cliffs and rich farmland over the centuries.
Moscow's reign began in the 18th century, when the Black Sea Fleet dropped anchor in 1783 in what is today the southern city of Sevastopol. Russia's rule was briefly interrupted by occupying German troops during World War II.
In May 1944, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin deported Muslim Tatars from Crimea, where they had lived for centuries, to Central Asia on charges of having collaborated with the Nazis.
Allied leaders chose the Crimean resort of Yalta in February 1945 to decide what Europe would look like after the war.
In 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea as a "gift" to Ukraine, a largely symbolic move because both Ukraine and Russia were Soviet republics.
But when the USSR collapsed in 1991, one of Moscow's biggest fleets was moored in a newly independent country on the edge of Europe.
Exiled Tatars began trickling back, and made up about 12 percent of the population in a 2001 census. They generally backed the months of demonstrations in Kiev that called for closer relations with Western Europe.
Ethnic Russians accounted for slightly more than 58 percent of the population, and ethnic Ukrainians 24 percent.
- Russia's Black Sea gate -The presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol has undermined relations between Kiev and Moscow.
The port provides Moscow with quick, ice-free access to the Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Middle East.
In 2010, Ukraine extended Moscow's lease on the port to 2042 in exchange for a 30-percent cut in the price of Russian gas on which Ukraine depends.
But Moscow remained wary about its reliance on Kiev and began building a new base on its own coast at Novorossiysk.
Last month, just days after pro-EU leaders took power in Kiev, pro-Russian gunmen seized the parliament and government buildings in the regional capital Simferopol, raising the Russian flag.
Since then, Russian forces have taken de facto control of the region, surrounding Ukrainian military installations.
On March 11, regional officials adopted a "declaration of independence" backed by Moscow but deemed illegitimate by Western countries.
On Sunday, exit polls cited by local officials showed 93 percent of voters in favour of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia in the most serious redrawing of the map of Europe since Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia.
Local pro-Moscow leader Sergiy Aksyonov said on Twitter that the Crimean authorities would apply on Monday to join the Russian Federation.