Suwałki County
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Suwałki County (Polish: powiat suwalski) is a powiat (county) in eastern Poland, in Podlasie Voivodeship. The county seat is the city of Suwałki and the powiat includes the area around it, but not the city itself which forms its own separate urban powiat. The population numbers 35,229 (2005). Its area is 1307.31 km².
[edit] History
Initially settled by an extinct Baltic nation of Sudovians, the region belonged to Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until the 3rd Partition of Poland in 1795, when it was occupied by Kingdom of Prussia until 1807. In 1807-1815 it belonged to Duchy of Warsaw and then to Congress Kingdom until 1915. In 1918 the area was divided between Poland and Lithuania along the ethnic lines, despite the whole of it being claimed by the nascent Republic of Lithuania. The Lithuanian government claimed the rights to the region based on its 1920 peace treaty with Soviet Russia, which had delimited borders to Štabinas only, with further borders up to the German province of East Prussia not defined. In 1920, after the Polish-Bolshevik War, Marshal Ferdinand Foch proposed that the area be granted to Poland. The proposal was accepted by the Paris Peace Conference and after a series of skirmishes), the Lithuanian forces withdrew from the area and Poland resumed control over it.
In 1939 the area was occupied by Nazi Germany and, despite Lithuanian claims, annexed to East Prussia. After World War II it returned to Poland. The Lithuanian SSR, the successor state of the Republic of Lithuania, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, renounced all claims to the area, which was later accepted by the authorities of independent Lithuania.
According to the Polish National Census of 2002 there were 5846 Lithuanians living in Poland, the majority of them inhabitating the region. There are Lithuanian schools and cultural societies present in the area and the Lithuanian language is spoken in the offices in the commune of Puńsk.
[edit] External link
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This Podlachian Voivodeship location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
| Counties of Podlasie Voivodeship |  |
|---|---|
| City counties: Białystok • Łomża • Suwałki
Land counties: Augustów • Białystok • Bielsk • Grajewo • Hajnówka • Kolno • Łomża • Mońki • Sejny • Siemiatycze • Sokółka • Suwałki • Wysokie Mazowieckie • Zambrów |
