Founding In the 19th century, the Russian Imperial government began to plan to build a seaport in the
Northern Azov region. In 1824, Count
Mikhail Vorontsov, Governor-General of the Caucasus Viceroyalty, sent an expedition to the Azov Sea. Its task was to find a place to build a new seaport to assist in the defense of Russia's southern borders. Initially, the place for a future port was implied in the village of Obetochnoe that belonged to Count
Orlov-Denisov, near the town of Nogaisk (now
Prymorsk) founded in 1821. In the autumn of 1824, Captain Nikolai Kritsky, the expedition supervisor reported on several prospective sites; the best being a place closed off from the sea by the . In an official report to Vorontsov, Kritsky wrote: "the quality of Berdiansk Spit surpasses that of
Obytichna Spit; you can build a landing stage and port on it unless you concede to
Sevastopol...". In the 1820s, the place of the future Berdiansk was just a small settlement of fishers with a few huts. The settlement that would become Berdiansk itself was founded in 1827 on the site of a
Nogai settlement named "Kutur-Ohla". Only by 12 January 1835, a state-owned quay had been built. According to
1928 Kharkiv Orthography. In 1841 the settlement at Berdiansk Bay received city status. Grigory Chernyaev (1787—1868) was appointed the city governor (
gradonachalnik) and the head of Berdiansk sea port. Chernyaev, an officer from landed gentry, took part in the Battle of Borodino. After the defeat of Napoleon he was appointed a comendant of
Valenciennes. On 31 January 1845, the first coat of arms of Berdiansk was created. At the top, on a green background, is a silver Nogai nomadic tent together with a black plow; this denotes the semi-nomadic life lived in
the Nogais and farming work done by local residents. In the bottom part, on a blue background, sits a black anchor to symbolize the district's affinity with the sea. By this time the customs outpost was already opened. Some foreign marine grain purchasing representatives (negotiators) moved their offices to Berdiansk from
Mariupol and
Odesa. In 1847, Berdiansk's Jewish population was 572, and in 1860, they established a
Talmud Torah school. A farming machine factory was opened by Schröder and Matias. There was the rope-making factory of Venz and Yanzen, Selstrem's candle-wax works, Litsmen sausage factory, Fetter's brewery, Klavdin macaroni factory, and Ediger's printing house. The Italians constructed the city power station. By this time, two daily newspapers, three libraries and four bookshops were established. The city had running water and electric light illumination. After the
assassination of Alexander II in 1881, there were fears of antisemitic
pogroms breaking out, and the Jews of Berdiansk requested the authorities to send troops to protect the population from ethnic violence. In 1899 Berdiansk was linked up to the railway. Berdiansk conducted large amounts of inland trade. It became a substantial distributive market for goods received over a wide area. By the beginnings of the 20th century, Berdiansk had become a merchant trading port with well developed industry, strongly influenced by its infrastructure. In 1915 a French consul, and the vice-consuls of the UK, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Norway, were in Berdiansk.
Soviet period and late 20th century During the
Ukrainian War of Independence, Berdiansk fell under the control of the
Makhnovshchina, becoming one of the key centres for the
Ukrainian anarchist movement. Afterwards it was administratively part of the
Zaporizhzhia Governorate of Ukraine. During the
Soviet period Berdiansk was a powerful industrial centre. There were machine factories of all types, an oil refinery, a fiberglass factory, cable factory, ferroconcrete combine, factory of materials handling equipment, provisions factory, a bread-baking complex, milk plant, a meat-packing plant, a considerable quantity of construction and mounting organizations, commodity railway station and the sea trading port. Between 1939 and 1958 the city was known as "Osypenko", so named after
Hero of the Soviet Union Polina Osipenko. {{multiple image |align=right |perrow=2 |total_width=260 The Jews in Berdiansk were murdered during the
German occupation of Ukraine in 1941 and 1942. During the rest of the Soviet period, little is known about the Jewish community. In the early 1990s, after Ukrainian independence, a Jewish cultural society in Berdiansk was created. In 1994, there were 2,000 Jews in Berdiansk, making up 1.3% of the population. On 27 February 2022, three days after the
Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Berdiansk was captured by the
Russian Army during the
Southern Ukraine offensive of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many local people protested the occupation in the streets, singing the Ukrainian national anthem. The
Russian Navy Tapir-class landing ship Saratov was sunk in the port of Berdiansk by a
Ukrainian attack on 24 March 2022. On 6 September 2022
Artem Bardin, the city's Russian-imposed commandant, was attacked and seriously injured near the administration building, and died later that day. A series of explosions was reported at Russian-occupied
Berdiansk air base on 8 December 2022. On 25 August 2025, Russian Prime minister
Mikhail Mishustin signed in an order allowing the cities of
Mariupol and Berdiansk to open their ports to foreign ships. ==Geography==