Polesie Voivodeship (Polish: województwo poleskie) was an administrative unit of interwar Poland (1918–1939), named after the historical region of Polesia.

It was created by the Council of Ministers of the Second Polish Republic on February 19, 1921,[1] as a result of peace agreement signed with the Russian and Ukrainian SSRs in Riga.

It ceased to function in September 1939, following the Nazi-German and Soviet invasion of Poland in accordance with a secret protocol of the Nazi–Soviet Pact of non-aggression.

The provincial capital of the Polesie Voivodeship, and also the largest city was Brześć nad Bugiem (Brest-on-the-Bug) with some 48,000 inhabitants (1931).

Ethnic Poles made up around 15% of the population,[citation needed] Ukrainians (mainly in the south-east) numbered about 5%, Belarusians 6.6%, and Jews (mainly in towns) around 10%.

Access to some villages and hamlets required boats, especially in early spring, when the waters of the Pripyat and other rivers (like the Pina, the Styr and the Horyn) rose as the snow melted.

Brześć, the voivodeship's capital and biggest city, did not have an impressively large population: about 50,700 according to the 1931 national census and around 55,000 in mid-1939.

[4] Polesie was the largest voivodeship of interwar Poland, comprising 10% of the country's overall territory with an area of 42,280 square kilometres (16,320 sq mi).

Statistically, ethnic Poles constituted 14,5% of the general population in 1931; Polish Jews, about 10,1% (or 114,000) half of whom (at roughly 49%) lived in the cities.

[9] Persisting needs of continuous state investment (as outlined in the 1936 memo) were massive; the road-building programme required 7.1 million Polish złoty annually, with the complete lack of stone in the area.

As the bulk of the Polish Army had concentrated in the west of the country to fight the Germans, the Soviets met with limited resistance and their troops quickly moved westwards until they reached Brześć on September 22, where they met with the invading German army, and held the joint victory parade.