It is bounded by the Dniester River on the north and east, the Prut on the west, and the Danube and the Black Sea on the south. Consisting mainly of a hilly plain with flat steppes, it is an extremely fertile agricultural area, especially for wine grapes, fruits, corn, wheat, tobacco, sugar beets, and sunflowers. Dairy cattle and sheep raising are also important.
Agricultural processing is the chief industry.
There are some stone quarries and lignite deposits. Bessarabia's leading cities are Chisinau and Tiraspol in Moldova and Izmayil and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyy in Ukraine. As the gateway from Russia into the Danube valley, Bessarabia has been an invasion route from Asia to Europe. Greek colonies were planted on the Black Sea coast of Bessarabia as early as the 7th cent. The region was later part of Roman Dacia , but after the 4th cent.