Polesia, Polesie, or Polesye, uk, Полісся (Polissia), pl, Polesie, russian: Полесье (Polesye) is a natural and

historical region Historical regions (or historical areas) are geographical regions which at some point in time had a cultural, ethnic, linguistic or political basis, regardless of latterday borders. They are used as delimitations for studying and analysing soc ...

that starts from the farthest edge of

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...

and encompasses

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

, including Eastern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, the

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

–

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

border region and Southwestern Russia.

Extent

One of the largest forest areas on the continent, Polesia is located in the southwestern part of the

Eastern-European Lowland The East European Plain (also called the Russian Plain, "Extending from eastern Poland through the entire European Russia to the Ural Mountaina, the ''East European Plain'' encompasses all of the Baltic states and Belarus, nearly all of Ukraine, ...

, the

Polesian Lowland The Polesian Lowland is a lowland in the southwestern portion of the East European Plain in the drainage basins of several rivers including the Dnieper, Prypiat and Desna. It stretches along the Belarus–Ukraine border. The eastern part of the ...

. On the western side, Polesia originates at the crossing of the

Bug River uk, Західний Буг be, Захо́дні Буг , name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of Wyszków, Poland , map = Vi ...

valley in

and the

Pripyat River The Pripyat or Prypiat ( , uk, Прип'ять, ; be, Прыпяць, translit=Prypiać}, ; pl, Prypeć, ; russian: Припять, ) is a river in Eastern Europe, approximately long. It flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine ag ...

valley of

Western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine ( uk, Західна Україна, Zakhidna Ukraina or , ) is the territory of Ukraine linked to the former Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austria ...

. The swampy areas of central Polesia are known as the

Pinsk Marshes __NOTOC__ The Pinsk Marshes ( be, Пінскія балоты, ''Pinskiya baloty''), also known as the Pripet Marshes ( be, Прыпяцкія балоты, ''Prypiackija baloty''), the Polesie Marshes, and the Rokitno Marshes, are a vast natural ...

(after the major local city of Pinsk). Large parts of the region were contaminated after the Chernobyl disaster and the region now includes the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, named after the region.

Name

The names ''Polesia/Polissia/Polesye'', etc. may reflect the Slavic root ''les'' 'forest', and the Slavic prefix ''po-'' 'on, in, along'.Compare Inhabitants of Polesia are called Polishchuks. The term is not related to ''

'', ''Polish language, Polish'', ''Poles, Pole'', etc., which is ultimately derived from Proto-Slavic language, Old Slavic ''Polje, pole'' 'field'.

History

In ancient times, the areas of today's western and west-central Polesia were inhabited by the people of the Milograd culture, the Neuri. In the late Middle Ages Polesia became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, following it into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569). Polesia was largely part of

from 1921 to 1939, when the country's largest provinces bore that name.'' Polesia has rarely been a separate administrative unit. However, there was a Polesie Voivodeship during the Second Polish Republic, as well as a Polesia Voblast in Byelorussian SSR. From 1931 to 1944, it was explicitly mentioned as constituent part of the short-lived (Byzantine Rite) Ukrainian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Volhynia, Polesia and Pidliashia. Since the end of World War II, the region of Polesie or Polesia has encompassed areas in eastern Poland, southern Belarus, northwestern Ukraine, and southwestern Russia.

Geography

Polesia is a marshy region lining the

(Pripyat Marshes) in Southern Belarus (Brest, Belarus, Brest, Pinsk, Kalinkavichy, Gomel), Northern Ukraine (in the Volyn Oblast, Volyn, Rivne Oblast, Rivne, Zhytomyr Oblast, Zhytomyr, Kyiv Oblast, Kyiv and Chernihiv Oblasts), and partly in Poland (Lublin) and Russia (Bryansk). It is a flatland within the drainage basins of the Western Bug and Pripyat River, Prypyat rivers. The two rivers are connected by the Dnieper-Bug Canal, built during the reign of Stanislaus II of Poland, the last king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Notable tributaries of the Pripyat are the Horyn, Stokhid, Styr, Ptsich, and Yaselda River, Yaselda rivers. The largest towns in the Pripyat basin are Pinsk, Stolin, Davyd-Haradok. Huge marshes were reclaimed from the 1960s to the 1980s for farmland. The reclamation is believed to have harmed the environment along the course of the Pripyat. This region suffered severely from the Chernobyl disaster. Huge areas were polluted by radioactive elements. The most polluted part includes the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the adjacent Polesie State Radioecological Reserve. Some other areas in the region are considered unsuitable for living as well.

Tourism

The Polish part of the region includes the Polesie National Park (''Poleski Park Narodowy''), established 1990, which covers an area of . This and a wider area adjoining it (up to the Ukrainian border) make up the UNESCO-designated West Polesie Biosphere Reserve, which borders a similar reserve (the List of Biosphere Reserves in Ukraine, Shatskiy Biosphere Reserve) on the Ukrainian side. There is also a protected area called Pribuzhskoye-Polesie in the Belarusian part of the region. The wooden architecture structures in the region were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on 30 January 2004 in the Cultural category.

Notes

References

External links

The Official Site of Radomysl Castle

at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Origin of Polesie lakes and parabolic dunes
{{coord missing, Ukraine Divided regions Historical regions in Belarus Historical regions in Poland Historical regions in Russia Historical regions in Ukraine Belarus–Ukraine border