Lesser Poland
Lesser Poland (Polish: Małopolska, Latin: Polonia Minor) is a historical region (dzielnica) of Poland; its capital is the city of Kraków.
It should not be confused with the modern Lesser Poland Voivodeship, which covers only the south-western part of Lesser Poland. Historical Lesser Poland is much bigger than the current voivodeship which bears its name, stretching from Bielsko-Biała in the south-west as far as to Siedlce in the north-east. It consisted of three voivodeships with the capitals in Kraków, Sandomierz and Lublin. It is almost 60,000 km2 in area and has about 9,000,000 inhabitants. Its landscape is mainly hilly, with Karpaty mountains in the south; it is located it the basin of upper Vistula. It has been famous for its mighty (magnateria) and rich nobility (szlachta).
In the wider sense (see Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown), Lesser Poland from the 14th century also encompassed Red Ruthenia, and from the 16th century Podlachia, Podolia and parts of modern Ukraine.
In the era of partitions, its southern part was Galicia, was sometimes also called Lesser Poland. As a result of this long-lasting division, many inhabitants of the northern part of the pre-partition region of Poland (with such cities as Lublin, Radom, Kielce and ) don't recognize their Lesser Polish identity. Although, Lublin (Lubelskie) has been declared independent Voivodeship as early as in 1474, and still presents Lesser Polish dialect, various local traditions and cuisine that have been preserved.
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