Polesie Voivodeship

Polesie Voivodeship Województwo poleskie
Voivodeship of Poland
← 1921–1939 →   →
Coat of arms
Location of Polesie Voivodeship within the Second Polish Republic.
Capital		Pińsk (until August 1921) Brześć
Voivode
•	1921–1922 (first)	Walery Roman
•	1932–1939 (last)	Wacław Kostek-Biernacki
Historical era		Interwar period
•	Established	12 February 1921
•	Soviet invasion	September 1939
Area
•	1921	42,280 km2(16,324 sq mi)
•	1939	36,668 km2(14,158 sq mi)
Population
•	1921	880,898
	Density	20.8 /km2  (54 /sq mi)
•	1931	1,132,200
Political subdivisions		27 / 9
Today part of		Ukraine, Belarus

Coat of arms

Polesie Voivodeship (Polish: województwo poleskie) was an administrative unit of interwar Poland (1918–1939). It ceased to function in September 1939, following the Nazi-German and Soviet invasion of Poland.

The provincial capital of the Polesie Voivodeship, and also the largest city was Brześć nad Bugiem (Brest-on-the-Bug) with some 48,000 inhabitants (1931). The province was made up of 9 powiats (counties), and had 12 substantial towns or cities. In 1921, the population of the province numbered 879,417, with the population density of about 20.8 persons per km², the lowest in interwar Poland. By 1931, thanks to a government-sponsored settlement programme and the progressive development of education, commerce and industry in the urban centres (neglected under the Tsarist Russia), the population had risen to 1,132,200, and the population density to 31 per km². The Jews constituted 49.2% of the urban population of Polesie, the highest in interwar Poland. They engaged mainly in retail trade, commerce and small industry.

According to the 1931 census, some 80.6% of the population engaged in agriculture. Most estates above 50 hectares in size, were owned by the Poles (65.4%) followed by ethnic Belarusians (17.8%). The majority of inhabitants (62.6%) described themselves merely as “locals” (tutejsi), and for the greater part were peasants of Belarusian and Ukrainian origin. Ethnic Poles made up around 15% of the population,Ukrainians (mainly in the south-east) numbered about 5%, Belarusians 6.6%, and Jews (mainly in towns) around 10%. Smaller communities of Russians also existed. The illiteracy rate was 48.4% due to the lingering imperial legacy, the highest in Poland and well above national average of 23.1% (in 1931).

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