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 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.

However there the origin of the term is different: historically it referred to transitional areas from woodless fields to densely wooded territory.