Volhynia or Volynia (/voʊˈlɪniə/ voh-LIN-ee-ə; see below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine.

The alternative name for the region is Lodomeria after the city of Volodymyr, which was once a political capital of the medieval Volhynian Principality.

In other versions, the city was located over 20 km (12 mi) to the west of Volodymyr near the mouth of the Huczwa [pl] River, a tributary of the Western Bug.

Geographically it occupies northern areas of the Volhynian-Podolian Upland and western areas of Polesian Lowland along the Pripyat valley as part of the vast East European Plain, between the Western Bug in the west and upper streams of Uzh and Teteriv rivers.

Before World War II, many Jewish shtetls (small towns), such as Trochenbrod and Lozisht, were an integral part of the region.

The land was mentioned in the works of Al-Masudi and Abraham ben Jacob that in ancient times the Walitābā and king Mājik, which some read as Walīnānā and identified with the Volhynians, were "the original, pure-blooded Saqaliba, the most highly honoured" and dominated the rest of the Slavic tribes, but due to "dissent" their "original organization was destroyed" and "the people divided into factions, each of them ruled by their own king", implying existence of a Slavic federation which perished after the attack of the Pannonian Avars.

[5][6]: 37 Volhynia may have been included in (or was in the sphere of influence of) the Grand Duchy of Kiev (Ruthenia) as early as the tenth century.

At that time Princess Olga sent a punitive raid against the Drevlians to avenge the death of her husband Grand Prince Igor (Ingvar Röreksson); she later established pogosts along the Luha River.

In the opinion of the Ukrainian historian Yuriy Dyba, the chronicle phrase «и оустави по мьстѣ.

Records of the first agricultural colonies of Mennonites, religious refugees of Dutch, Frisian and German background, date from 1783.

Although economically the area was developing rather quickly, upon the eve of the First World War it was still the most rural province in Western Russian Empire.

During World War I, Volhynia was the place of several battles, fought by the Austrians, Germans and the Polish Legions against Russia, eg.

Military aid from the Central Powers as a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk brought peace in the region and some degree of stability.

After German troops were withdrawn, the whole region was engulfed by a new wave of military actions by Poles and Russians competing for control of the territory.

From 1935 to 1938, the government of the Soviet Union deported numerous nationals from Volhynia in a population transfer to Siberia and Central Asia, as part of the dekulakization, an effort to suppress peasant farmers in the region.

Following the mass deportations and arrests carried out by the NKVD, and repressive actions against Poles taken by Germany, including deportation to the Reich to forced labour camps, arrests, detention in camps and mass executions, by 1943 ethnic Poles constituted only 10–12% of the entire population of Volhynia.

About 400,000–450,000 Jews[citation needed] and 100,000 Poles (men, women and children) in Volhynia were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Ukraine collaborators.