A part of the Vilnius Governorate was then included in the Lithuania District of Ober-Ost, formed by the occupying German Empire.

The Council of Ambassadors and the international community (with the exception of Lithuania) recognized Polish sovereignty over the Vilnius region in 1923.

[7] Between 1944 and 1946, about 150,000 people, mostly but not all of Polish extraction left the area for Poland (about 10% of this group may have been Lithuanians hoping to escape Soviet rule).

Meanwhile, the Jewish population of the area, just as in the rest of Lithuania, was virtually exterminated by the Nazis during World War II.

As of 2001, ethnic Lithuanians once again predominated within the city of Vilnius (59%), but the area of the former governorate as a whole remained about 62% Polish, with the percentage of Russians (8.6) and Belarusians (4.4) having dwindled to a tiny minority.