are constructed from the East Slavic root les 'forest', and the prefix po-, which in the meaning of 'on, by, along' is used to create place names.

In ancient times, the areas of today's western and west-central Polesia were inhabited by the people of the Milograd culture, the Neuri.

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.

Since the end of World War II, the region has encompassed areas in eastern Poland, southern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine.

The two rivers are connected by the Dnieper-Bug Canal, built during the reign of Stanislaus II of Poland, the last king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The most polluted part includes the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the adjacent Polesie State Radioecological Reserve.

The wooden architecture structures in the region were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on 30 January 2004 in the Cultural category.