a city and administrative center of Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Situated on the Psel River at the confluence of the Psel, the Psel’s tributary the Sumka, and the Sumka’s tributary the Strelka. Railroad station on the Kharkov-Vorozhba line. Population, 194,000 (1975; 64,000 in 1939; 98,000 in 1959; 159,000 in 1970). The city has an airport.

Sumy was founded in 1652. From 1658 to 1765 it was the administrative center of the Sumy military-territorial regiment. It was often subjected to raids by the Crimean Tatars. In 1765 the city became the administrative center of the provintsiia (sub-province) of Sumy, and in 1780 it became a district capital of the namestnichestvo (vicegerency) of Kharkov. Sumy became a district capital of Slobodsko-Ukrainskaia Province in 1796 and of Kharkov Province in 1835. The city was also an important commercial center.

In 1877, Sumy was linked by rail with Liubotin and Vorozhba. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, metalworking, machine-building, and sugar-refining industries were developed in the city. In 1902 a Social Democratic organization adhering to the positions of Iskra appeared. Soviet power was established in Sumy in December 1917 after the rout of the White Guards of Denikin. The city became the administrative center of Sumy Oblast in 1939. Occupied by fascist German troops from Oct. 10, 1941, to Sept. 2, 1943, Sumy was badly damaged. It was rebuilt after the war.

Today, Sumy is an important industrial center of the Ukrainian SSR, with enterprises for machine building, food processing, and light industry. The largest establishments include the Frunze Machine-building Plant, which makes equipment for the chemical industry, the 50th Anniversary of the All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League Electron Microscope Plant, a heavy compressor plant, an iron foundry, and a plant manufacturing pumps. The city has a sugar refinery, a distillery, a milk plant, and a meat-packing combine, and there are also clothing, textile, and footwear factories. The Sumy Khimprom Production Association makes phosphate fertilizers and sulfuric acid. Furniture is manufactured in the city, and there is a combine producing items for the construction industry.

Sumy’s educational institutions include a pedagogical institute, a branch of the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute, and technicums for machine building, construction, sugar production, Soviet trade, cooperatives, and agriculture. There are also cultural-educational, medical, and music schools. In addition to the M. S. Shchepkin Music and Drama Theater, the city has an art museum, a museum of history and local lore, and a philharmonic society.