Geographical Regions for the JewishGen Belarus Database

Today's Belarus was part of five Russian Empire gubernias (pre-1917): Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev, Vilna, and Vitebsk.

Each gubernia was comprised of several districts (uyezds):

• Minsk gubernia was comprised of 10 districts (uyezds):
  Bobruisk, Borisov, Igumen, Minsk, Mozyr, Nesvizh, Novogrudok, Pinsk, Rechitsa and Slutsk.
  Between the two world wars — the western third was in Poland (southern Nowogródek and northeastern Polesie provinces).
  Today — the vast majority of Minsk gubernia is in modern Belarus; small portions of southern Pinsk and Mozyr uyezds are in modern Ukraine.

• Mogilev gubernia was comprised of 11 districts (uyezds):
  Bykhov, Chausy, Cherikov, Gomel, Gory-Gorki, Klimovichi, Mogilev, Mstislavl, Orsha, Rogachev, and Senno.
  Today — the majority of Mogilev gubernia is in modern Belarus; small portions of northeastern Mogilev gubernia are in modern Russia.

• Vitebsk gubernia was comprised of 11 districts (uyezds):
  Drissa, Dvinsk, Gorodok, Lepel, Liutsin, Nevel, Polotsk, Rezhitsa, Sebezh, Velizh, and Vitebsk.
  Today — Dvinsk, Rezhitsa and Liutsin uyezds are in Latvia; Sebezh, Nevel and parts of Gorodok and Velizh uyezds are now in Russia; the remainder of the uyezds are in Belarus.

• Grodno gubernia was comprised of 9 districts (uyezds):
  Bialystok, Bielsk, Brest, Grodno, Kobrin, Pruzhany, Slonim, Sokolka and Volkovysk.
  Between the two world wars — was in Poland (western Polesie, western Nowogródek, eastern Białystok provinces).
  Today — the western third (Bialystok, Bielsk, and Sokolka uyezds) are in Poland; the remainder of the uyezds are in Belarus.

• Vilna Gubernia was comprised of 7 districts (uyezds):
  Disna, Lida, Oshmyany, Vilejka, Sventsyany, Troki and Vilna.
  Between the two world wars — was in Poland (Wilno and northern Nowogródek provinces).
  Today — the four southern uyezds are in Belarus, and most of the three northern uyezds are in Lithuania.
  For more details, see Geographical Regions for the JewishGen Lithuania Database.

• Small parts of Kovno Gubernia (eastern Novo-Alexandrovsk uyezd), Suwałki Gubernia (eastern Augustów uyezd), and Volhynia Gubernia are also now in Belarus.

JewishGen Database Sharing:

Because of overlapping political borders over time, some regions are shared with other JewishGen databases.

• Regions shared with the JewishGen Lithuania Database: southern Vilna gubernia.  [See details: Lithuania Regions].
• Regions shared with the JewishGen Poland Database: Vilna and Grodno gubernias.  [See details: Poland Regions].
• Regions shared with the JewishGen Latvia Database: parts of Vitebsk gubernia.  [See details: Latvia Regions].