Voivodships of Poland

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Updates: 

New proposed NUTS codes for Poland were issued on 2004-09-15. I have updated the table to show them.

FIPS PUB 10-4 is the U.S. Federal standard for administrative divisions of countries. Change 2 to FIPS PUB 10-4 is dated 1999-03-01. This change recognizes the reorganization of Poland that took effect on 1998-07-27. Update I-1 to ISO 3166-2 was published on 2000-06-21. It also shows the revised list of voivodships from 1998. The FIPS and ISO codes for the current divisions of Poland are shown in the table below.

Country overview: 

In 1900, historical Poland was entirely subjected to other nations. The area that is now Poland was split among the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian Empires. At the end of World War I, the Poles proclaimed a republic which was then validated by the Versailles Treaty. As World War II began, Germany and the Soviet Union overran the country from opposite sides to the middle. In the settlements ending the war, Poland was reconstituted. As compared to the interbellum period, it gained territory in the west from Germany, but lost territory in the east to the Soviet Union. It remained independent, but under the hegemony of the Soviet Union, until the Iron Curtain fell in 1989.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Polen
2. Dutch: Polen, Republiek Polen (formal)
3. English: Polish Republic (formal)
4. Finnish: Puola
5. French: Pologne f
6. German: Polen n
7. Hungarian: Lengyelország
8. Icelandic: Pólland
9. Italian: Polonia f
10. Norwegian: Polen, Republikken Polen (formal)
11. Polish: Polska, Rzeczpospolita Polska (formal)
12. Portuguese: Polónia, Polônia f (Brazil), República f da Polónia f (formal)
13. Spanish: Polonia, República f Polaca (formal)
14. Swedish: Polen

Origin of name: 

from ethnic name Polane, from Slavic pole: field

Primary subdivisions: 

Poland is divided into sixteen wojewodztwa (voivodships).

Postal codes: 

Poland uses five-digit postal codes, with a hyphen between the second and third digits. The codes don't correlate well with voivodship boundaries.

Further subdivisions:

See the Counties of Poland page.

Poland is divided into 16 województwa (sing. województwo: voivodships or provinces). The voivodships are divided into 308 powiaty (sing. powiat: districts, counties) and 65 cities of county right, sometimes referred to as rural districts and urban districts. These are subdivided into miasta (towns), which are further subdivided into gminy (sing. gmina: communes, wards). The powiaty were abolished in 1975, but reinstated in 1998.

Poland has also been divided into arbitrary NUTS-1 regions (regiony) and NUTS-3 subregions (podregiony) for statistical purposes. The NUTS scheme is hierarchical. The first four characters of a subregion code indicate which voivodship the subregion belongs to, and the first three characters of a voivodship code indicate which region the voivodship belongs to. Here are lists of these codes.

Territorial extent: 

Zachodniopomorskie contains the Polish part of Uznam Island (German name: Usedom).

Origins of names of former provinces:

1. Białystok: Polish biały: white, stok: river
2. Bydgoszcz: Indo-European bredahe: swampy water
3. Elbląg: from Old Norwegian elf: river
4. Gdańsk: from Gothic Gutisk-andja: end of the Goths (Gdynia likewise)
5. Jelenia Góra: Polish jelen: stag, gora: mountain (cf. German name, from Hirsch: stag, Berg: mountain)
6. Kraków: man's name Krak, legendary founder of city
7. Zielona Góra: Polish zielona: green, gora: mountain (cf. German name, from grün: green, Berg: mountain)

Change history: 

1. 1815-05-03: Congress of Vienna created the Kingdom of Poland (sometimes called Congress Poland) and made it a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Empire.
2. 1861: Administrative reform in the Russian Empire divided Congress Poland into ten guberniy, or provinces. Their Russian names (transliterated) were Kalish, Kel'tsy, Lomzha, Lyublin, Petrokov, Plotsk, Radom, Sedlets, Suvalki, and Varshava.
3. In 1900, the area corresponding to modern Poland belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, and the Russian Empire. The Austro-Hungarian Empire consisted of Austria (Cisleithania) and Hungary (Transleithania); Austria, in turn, was divided into provinces, parts of two of which (Galicia and Silesia) are now in Poland. The German-owned section of modern Poland lay within two states of the German Empire: the Kingdom of Prussia (Brandenburg, East Prussia, Pomerania, Posen, Silesia, and West Prussia provinces) and the Kingdom of Saxony (Bautzen province). The Russian part consisted of most of the Kingdom of Poland, and part of the guberniya of Grodno.
4. 1912: Kholm (Polish Chelm) guberniya formed from parts of Lyublin and Sedlets.
5. 1919-06-28: Treaty of Versailles signed. Poland's independence, which it had proclaimed on 1918-11-09, was recognized. Poland comprised most of Posen and West Prussia provinces from Germany, the Kingdom of Poland from Russia, and Galicia from Austria. Galicia was in fact divided into East and West Galicia. West Galicia became fully part of Poland; East Galicia was mandated to Poland but a plebiscite was planned for it. Germany retained East Prussia and a small section of West Prussia, an exclave separated from the rest of Germany by the "Polish Corridor." A 1,893-km.² section on the West Prussian Baltic shore around Danzig (Gdańsk) became the Free City of Danzig (Freie Stadt Danzig). The provisional border between Poland and Russia was the Curzon Line, soon wiped from the map in the Russo-Polish War (1919-20), which also gave Poland full sovereignty in East Galicia.
6. 1920-10-07: Poland occupied the southeastern part of Vilna, including the city of Vilnius.
7. 1921-03-18: Poland and Russia signed the Riga Treaty, dividing Byelorussia between them. Poland gained Grodno, most of Vilna, the western part of Volhynia, and a western fringe of Minsk. Brest-Litovsk was renamed to Brzešč nad Bugiem.
8. 1921-05-21: Plebiscite held in most of Upper Silesia (part of Silesia province, Prussia). A few eastern cantons voted for union with Poland, which took place in 1922. The divisions of Poland at this time were the former Prussian Bezirke (districts) of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Gdansk (Danzig), Kwidzyn (Marienwerder), and Poznan (Posen); the guberniy of Russian Poland, Kalisz (Kalish), Kielce (Kel'tsy), Łomża (Lomzha), Lublin (Lyublin), Piotrkow (Petrokov), Płock (Plotsk), Radom, Siedlce (Sedlets), Suwalki (Suvalki), and Warszawa (Varshava); the conquered sections of the West Russian guberniy of Grodno, Minsk, Vilna, and Wolyń (Volhynia); and Kraków (West Galicia) and Lwów (East Galicia). Names in parentheses are the prewar names of these divisions.
9. 1939-09-01: Germany invaded Poland, igniting World War II. The Soviet Union invaded Poland on 1939-09-17. By 1939-09-21, Poland had been divided between Germany and the Soviet Union. Germany also annexed the Free City of Danzig, which it renamed Hanseatic City of Danzig (Hansestadt Danzig) in 1940.
10. 1939-10-10: Over half of the Polish territory in Vilna guberniya restored to Lithuania.
11. 1945-07-16: Potsdam Conference began. It transferred large parts of the German provinces of Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, East and West Prussia to Poland, except that the northern part of East Prussia became Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. The new western border of Poland was called the Oder-Neisse Line, as it generally followed the course of the Oder and Neisse Rivers. A small area east of Ostrava was transferred from Poland to Czechoslovakia, splitting in two the city known as Cieszyn in Polish, Těšín in Czech, and Teschen in German. The Soviet Union recovered territory lost in the Russo-Polish War up to approximately the Curzon Line, annexing it to the republics of Byelorussia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. By 1946, Poland was organized into fourteen voivodships and two independent cities on the same administrative level as a voivodship. Boundaries were redrawn, so the correspondence is only fair, but Mazury is roughly East Prussia; Śląsk Dabrowski and Śląsk Dolny roughly match Silesia; Pomorze Zachodnie roughly matches Pomerania; and the Free City of Danzig merged with the new Gdańsk voivodship.

1. ~1949: Name of Mazury changed to Olsztyn; name of Pomorze changed to Bydgoszcz; name of Pomorze Zachodnie changed to Szczecin; name of Śląsk Dabrowski changed to Śląsk; name of Śląsk Dolny changed to Wrocław.
2. ~1955: Koszalin voivodship formed from parts of Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, and Szczecin; Śląsk voivodship split into Katowice and Opole (with small annexations from Kielce and Wrocław); Zielona Góra voivodship formed from parts of Poznań and Wrocław; Kraków, Poznań, and Wrocław independent cities split from the voivodships of the same names; other border adjustments made; capital of Warszawa voivodship moved from Pruszków to Warszawa (Warsaw). After these changes, the list of voivodships was:

1. 1975-06-01: Administrative reform changed the seventeen voivodships into the 49 listed below, and eliminated the districts. There were also three cities with voivodship status (Kraków, Łódź, and Warszawa). In most sources, these three cities are included in the voivodships of the same names.

1. 1998-07-27: President Kwaśniewski signed a bill reorganizing Poland from 49 voivodships to sixteen. Subsequently, on 1998-08-07, the subdivision of the country into 308 counties (powiaty), plus 65 cities with county rights, was decided. The new divisions were implemented on 1999-01-01.

Other names of former subdivisions:

1. Gdańsk: Dantzig (French); Danzica (Italian); Danzig (obsolete)
2. Kraków: Cracovia (Italian, Spanish); Cracóvia (Portuguese); Cracovie (French); Cracow (variant)
3. Lublin: Lublino (Italian); Lyublin (Russian)
4. Szczecin: Stettino (Italian)
5. Warszawa: Stołeczne Warszawskie (formal); Varsavia (Italian); Varshava (Russian); Varsovia (Spanish); Varsóvia (Portuguese); Varsovie (French); Warsaw (variant)
6. Wrocław: Breslavia (Italian)