Regions of Belarus

At the top level of administration, the Eastern European country of Belarus is divided into six voblasts (meaning "provinces" or "regions") and the city of Minsk, which has a special status being the capital of Belarus. Minsk is also the capital of Minsk Region.

At the second level, the voblasts are divided into raions ("districts").

The layout and extent of the voblasts were set in 1960 when Belarus (then Byelorussian SSR) was a part of the Soviet Union.

History

At the start of the 20th century, the boundaries of the Belarusian lands within the Russian Empire were still being defined. The amount of territory that was called Belarus contained the entire Minsk Governorate and Mogilev Governorate, the majority of Hrodna Governorate, parts of Vitebsk Governorate and the parts of Vilna Governorate (the latter is now in Lithuania).

In Soviet Belarus, new administrative units, called voblast (a barbarised version of the Russian word область) were introduced in 1938.

At different times, the following voblasts did exist:

• Babruysk Voblast
• Baranavichy Voblast
• Belastok Voblast
• Maladzyechna Voblast
• Navahrudak Voblast
• Pinsk Voblast
• Polatsk Voblast
• Polesia Voblast
• Vileyka Voblast

Map

Regions of Belarus

	Subdivision	Capital	Belarusian	Population (2009 estimate)	Area (km2)	Density	Percentage of Belarus
	All Belarus	Minsk	Беларусь	9,671,900	207,756	46.55	100.00%
1	City of Minsk	—	Мiнск	1,829,100	256	7144.92	18.91%
2	Brest Region	Brest	Брэсцкая	1,433,100	32,800	43.69	14.82%
3	Gomel Region	Gomel	Гомельская	1,464,100	40,400	36.25	15.14%
4	Grodno Region	Grodno	Гродзенская	1,102,800	25,000	44.11	11.40%
5	Mogilev Region	Mogilev	Магілёўская	1,123,100	29,000	38.73	11.61%
6	Minsk Region	Minsk	Мiнская	1,454,000	40,200	36.17	15.03
7	Vitebsk Region	Vitebsk	Вiцебская	1,265,300	40,100	31.55	13.08%

See also

• ISO 3166-2:BY, the ISO codes of the voblasts of Belarus.
• Towns of Belarus

External links

• Current Status of United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names of Belarus