A voivodship (in Polish województwo) is a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland since the 14th century. As a result of Local Government Reogranization Act of 1998, 16 new voivodships were created (effective January 1 1999) and replaced the 49 voivodships which had existed since 1 July 1975.
Today's provinces are largely based on the country's historical regions, whereas those of 1975-1998 were centered on and named for individual cities. The new units range in area from under 10,000 km² (Opole Voivodship) to over 35,000 km² (Masovian Voivodship), and in population from one million (Lubusz Voivodship) to over five million (Masovian Voivodship).
Poland's present voivodships (since 1999)
See also List of capitals of subnational entities.
For a table with area and population figures, see the Polish ("Polski") version of this page.
This reorganisation of administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of local government reform acts of 1973-1975. In place of three level administrative division (voivodship, county, commune), new two-level administrative division was introduced (49 small voidships and communes). Tree smallest voivodships of Warsaw, Cracow and Lodz had special status of city voivodship; the city president (mayor) was also province governor.
(English name, Polish name, abbrevation, capital city)
In 1950 new voivodships created: Koszalin - previously part of Szczecin, Opole - previously part of Katowice, and Zielona Góra - previously part of Poznan, Wroclaw and Szczecin voivodships.
Newly acquired teritories in the west and north organized into the voivodships of Szczecin, Wroclaw, Olsztyn and partly joined to Gdansk,
Katowice and Poznan voivodships.
Polish voivodships 1975-1998 (49)
Polish voivodships 1950-1975 (17+5)
1950-1975 2 cities with voivodship status: Warsaw and Lodz,
1957-1975 5 cities with voivodship status: additionally Wroclaw
, Krakow and Poznan.Polish voivodships 1945-1950 (14+2)
Polish voivodships 1921-1939 (16+1)
Polish voivodships 1569-1795
Province of Greater Poland
Province of Lesser Poland
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Livonia
