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Polesia, also called Polissia, Polesie, or Polesye, is a natural (geographic) and historical region in Eastern Europe within the East European Plain, including the Belarus–Ukraine border region and part of eastern Poland. This region should not be confused with parts of Russia also traditionally called "Polesie".
The swampy areas of central Polesia are known as the Pripet Marshes (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. This includes Ukraine north-northwest of its capital Kyiv region.
In the late Middle Ages Polesia became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, following it into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569). It became part of Russian Empire in the late-18th-century Partitions of Poland. Polesia was largely part of Poland from 1921 to 1939, when the country's largest province, the Polesie Voivodeship, bore that name, with the eastern part forming part of the Byelorussian SSR, within which the Polesia Region was created in 1938. 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.
Following the 1939 invasion of Poland, most of the region was under Soviet occupation, with the western outskirts under German occupation until 1941, and then the entire region, including the pre-war Soviet-controlled part, was under German occupation until 1943–1944. Since the end of World War II, the region has encompassed areas in eastern Poland, southern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine.
Notable tributaries of the Pripyat are the Horyn, Stokhid, Styr, Ptsich, and Yaselda River rivers. The largest towns in the Pripyat basin are Pinsk, Stolin, Davyd-Haradok. Huge marshes were reclaimed from the 1960s to the 1980s for .
The region is subdivided into several subregions among which are:
According to the late 19th-century Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland Polesie was divided into Northern Polesia, itself divided into Upper Polesia or Pinsk Polesia and Lower Polesia or Mazyr Polesia, and Southern Polesia, itself divided into Volhynian Polesia (overlapping northern Volhynia) and Drevlian Polesia.
The wooden architecture structures in the region were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on 30 January 2004 in the Cultural category.
Chernobyl disaster
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 Shatsky Lakes) on the Ukrainian side. There is also a protected area called Prybuzhskaie-Paliessie in the Belarusian part of the region.
See also
There are areas in Russia traditionally called Polesie () as well. However there the origin of the term is different: historically it referred to transitional areas from woodless fields to densely wooded territory.
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