Lwów Voivodeship

Lwów Voivodeship Województwo lwowskie
Voivodeship of Poland
← 1920–1939 →   →   →
Lwów Voivodeship (dark blue) on the map of Second Polish Republic
Capital		Lwów
Government		Voivodeship
Voivodes
•	1921–1924	Kazimierz Grabowski
•	1937–1939	Alfred Biłyk
Historical era		Interwar period
•	Established	23 December 1920
•	Annexed and divided	September 1939
•	Underground administration abolished	August 1944
Area
•	1921	27,024 km2(10,434 sq mi)
•	1939	28,402 km2(10,966 sq mi)
Population
•	1921	2,718,014
	Density	100.6 /km2  (260.5 /sq mi)
•	1931	3,126,300
Political subdivisions		27 powiats
Today part of		Ukraine, Poland

Lwów Voivodeship (Polish: Województwo lwowskie) was an administrative unit of interwar Poland (1918–1939). Because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it ceased to exist in September 1939, following the German and Soviet conquest of Poland. The Polish underground administration however, existed until August 1944.

Its capital, biggest and most important city was Lwów (now: Lviv in Ukraine). It consisted of 27 powiats (counties), 58 towns and 252 villages. In 1921 it was inhabited by 2,789,000 people. Ten years later, this number rose to 3,126,300 (which made it the most populous of all Polish Voivodeships). In 1931, the population density was 110 per km². The majority of the population (57%) was Polish, especially in western counties. Ukrainians (mainly in the east and south-east) made up about 33% and Jews (mainly in towns) - around 7%. Also, there were smaller communities of Armenians, Germans and other nationalities. In 1931, the illiteracy rate of the Voivodeship's population lingering from the century of foreign rule was 23.1%, about the same as national average and, at the same time, the lowest in the Polish Eastern Borderlands.

The Voivodeship's area was 28,402 square kilometres (10,966 sq mi). It was located in southeastern Poland, bordering Czechoslovakia to the south, Kraków Voivodeship to the west, Lublin Voivodeship to the north and Volhynian Voivodeship, Stanisławów Voivodeship and Tarnopol Voivodeship to the east. Landscape was hilly (in the north) and mountainous (in the south, along the Czechoslovakian border, with numerous spas located there, such as Slawsko). Forest covered 23.3% of the Voivodeship area (January 1, 1937 statistics; with the national average of 22.2%).

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