Galicia, also known by its variant name Galizia[1] (/ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ə/ gə-LISH-(ee-)ə;[2] Polish: Galicja, IPA: [ɡaˈlit͡sja] ⓘ; Ukrainian: Галичина, romanized: Halychyna, IPA: [ɦɐlɪtʃɪˈnɑ]; Yiddish: גאַליציע, romanized: Galitsye; see below), is a historical and geographic region spanning what is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, long part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The name of the region derives from the medieval city of Halych,[6][7][8] and was first mentioned in Hungarian historical chronicles in the year 1206 as Galiciæ.

The nucleus of historic Galicia lies within the modern regions of western Ukraine: the Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts near Halych.

In the 10th century, several cities were founded there, such as Volodymyr and Jaroslaw, whose names mark their connections with the Grand Princes of Kiev, Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav the Wise.

The name of the region in the local languages is: Some historians[a] speculated that the name had to do with a group of people of Thracian origin (i.e. Getae)[12] who during the Iron Age moved into the area after the Roman conquest of Dacia in 106 CE and may have formed the Lypytsia culture with the Venedi people who moved into the region at the end of La Tène period.

In 1349, in the course of the Galicia–Volhynia Wars, King Casimir III the Great of Poland conquered the major part of Galicia and put an end to the independence of this territory.

In 1772 the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, used those historical claims to justify her participation in the First Partition of Poland.

In fact, the territories acquired by Austria did not correspond exactly to those of former Halych-Volhynia – the Russian Empire took control of Volhynia to the north-east, including the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi (Włodzimierz Wołyński) – after which Lodomeria was named.

On the other hand, much of Lesser Poland – Nowy Sącz and Przemyśl (1772–1918), Zamość (1772–1809), Lublin (1795–1809), and Kraków (1846–1918) – became part of Austrian Galicia.

Moreover, despite the fact that Austria's claim derived from the historical Hungarian crown, "Galicia and Lodomeria" were not officially assigned to Hungary, and after the Ausgleich of 1867, the territory found itself in Cisleithania, or the Austrian-administered part of Austria-Hungary.

The duchies of Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and Zator were small historical principalities west of Kraków, on the border with Prussian Silesia.

Galicia and Volhynia had originally been two separate Rurikid principalities, assigned on a rotating basis to younger members of the Kievan dynasty.

In 1204, Roman captured Kyiv in alliance with Poland, signed a peace treaty with the Kingdom of Hungary and established diplomatic relations with the Byzantine Empire.

Roman was killed in the Battle of Zawichost (1205), and Galicia–Volhynia entered a period of rebellion and chaos, becoming an arena of rivalry between Poland and Hungary.

The south-eastern part of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was awarded to the Habsburg Empress Maria-Theresa, whose bureaucrats named it the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, after one of the titles of the princes of Hungary, although its borders coincided but roughly with those of the former medieval principality.

The Russian forces overran most of the region in 1914 after defeating the Austro-Hungarian army in a chaotic frontier battle in the opening months of the war.

[25] The Ukrainians of Eastern Galicia and the neighbouring province of Volhynia made up about 12% of the Polish Republic's population, and were its largest minority.

[28][29] Of the 44 administrative divisions of Austrian eastern Galicia, Lviv (Polish: Lwów, German: Lemberg) was the only one in which Poles made up a majority of the population.

The new state borders cut Galicia off from many of its traditional trade routes and markets of the Polish sphere, resulting in stagnation of economic life and decline of Galician towns.

After a short period of limited investments, the Austrian government started the fiscal exploitation of Galicia and drained the region of manpower through conscription to the imperial army.

The Austrians decided that Galicia should not develop industrially but remain an agricultural area that would serve as a supplier of food products and raw materials to other Habsburg provinces.

[42][d] Subsequently, investors from Britain, Belgium, and Germany established companies to develop the oil and natural gas industries in Galicia.