This article is devoted to the problem of settlement of the «Dnieper places» of the Hetmanate and the emergence of settlements in this area, in the period from the beginning of the seventeenth - in the first half of the eighteenth centuries. The source base of the research is archival written and cartographic monuments. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systematization, scientificity, verification, authorial objectivity, moderate narrative constructivism, as well as the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (historical-genetic, historical-typological, historical-systemic) methods. The scientific novelty is that for the first time in the modern historiography of colonization of the Dnieper territories of the Hetmanate on the basis of little-studied and previously unknown archival documents and cartographic materials revealed the processes of origin, development, decline of settlements, clarified their number and status. In the course of colonization and economic development of the territory of the «Zadniprsky places» of the Hetmanate, several main periods can be distinguished. They are determined by changes in the number and status of settlements in this area during the seventeenth - first half of the eighteenth centuries. In the 40's of the eighteenth century the least populated was the south of the «Zadniprsky places» of the Hetmanate, the north was somewhat more populated, but the central part of the territory was the most populated. In the second half of the 40's of the eighteenth century on the initiative of the hetman's administration, the colonization of the Zadneprovsky region intensified, which led to the formation of settlements, in particular, free villages. In the early 50's of the eighteenth century there is a change in the status of «derevnya» to villages, and villages to towns, fortifications are laid, strengthened and expanded together with the surrounding village. The status of settlements was determined by the population, size, availability of administrative bodies, religious buildings and communities, economic orientation of the population

territory, colonization, Zadniprovsky places, Hetmanate, settlement, status