PolandGenWeb

Where is German-Poland, Russian-Poland, and Austrian-Poland?

From the late 1700s until the end of WWI, Poland did not exist as a country.  It was divided among the Russian, German (Prussian), and Austrian Empires.  These divisions were known as Partitions.  As you may have seen on U.S. Census records, the countries of origin for many of our ancestors was listed as Russian-Poland, Prussian-Poland or German-Poland, and Austrian-Poland.

When Poland was restored as a country after WWI, only certain portions of these partitioned areas were used to construct the present day Poland.  The other portion of these areas were retained by the respective ruling government.  So, keep this in mind when you see Russian-Poland, German-Poland, and Austrian-Poland on those Census records.  Your ancestor may have come from an area that is no longer part of Poland!

Below you will find links to maps of the various regions found in each partition of Poland, as well as other information.

German-Poland
This area was also referred to as Silesia and Prussian-Poland.  Prussia took parts of Great Poland in the First Partition of Poland in 1772.  In the Second Partition in 1793, Prussia seized Danzig (Gdansk), Thorn (Torun), and Great Poland, as well as a part of Mazovia.  Prussia took the remainder of Mazovia, including Warsaw, in the Third Partition.

1882 Map of Posen
1882 Map of Pomerania
1882 Map of Silesia
1882 Map of East Prussia

An Index of German-Polish and Polish-German names of the localities in Poland & Russia -- great source for converting German names of towns to the present Polish and Russian names

Kartenmeister Database Search Utility - another very good source for converting the old German names to the current Polish ones

Russian-Poland
Russia had obtained White Russia and Latvian Lithuania to the Dnieper and Dvina rivers in the First Partition of Poland.  In the Second Partition, Russia took most of the western Ukraine, including Podolia and a part of Volhynia, and all of the eastern part of Lithuania, also obtaining the right to move its troops into what remained of Poland and control its foreign policy.  Russia acquired the rest of Lithuania and the Ukraine, the remainder of Volhynia, and the Duchy of Courland in the Third Partition.

Warsaw and the surrounding area was under Prussian rule until 1815, when the Congress Kingdom of Poland comes into being under Russian rule.  The former provinces of Grodno, Kalicz, Kielce, Lublin, Lodz, Lomza, Plock, Radom, Siedlce, and Suwalki were among those areas annexed by the Russian Government.

1902 Map of Russia's Polish Provinces -- this is a great map of the area.  The names of numerous towns appear on this map.
1882 Map of Belarus

Austrian-Poland
By the First Partition of Poland, Austria had obtained Galicia (consisting of Red Russia, the city of Lemberg [Lwow], a part of western Podolia, and southern Little Poland).  Austria did not take any Polish land in the Second Partition.  During the Third Partition of Poland, Austria took the remainder of Little Poland and Krakow.

1882 Map of Galicia