[citation needed] Upper parties of Bieszczady are covered with montane meadows called polonyna (Ukrainian: полонина; Polish: połonina; Slovak: polonina).

A Latin language source of 1269 refers to them as "Beschad Alpes Poloniae" (translated as: Bieszczady Mountains of Poland).

[2] Another less probable possibility is the term being related to Middle Low German beshêt, beskēt, meaning watershed.

Bieszczady was one of the strategically important areas of the Carpathian mountains bitterly contested in battles on the Eastern Front of World War I during the winter of 1914/1915.

The killing of the Polish General Karol Świerczewski in Jabłonki by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1947 was the direct cause of the replacement of the Boykos, the so-called Operation Vistula.

In 1991, the UNESCO East Carpathian Biosphere Reserve was created that encapsulates a large part of the area and continues into Slovakia and Ukraine.