Belarusians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. More than 9.5 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 8 million Belarusians reside in Belarus, with the United States and Russia being home to more than half a million Belarusians each.
The lands of Belarus during the Middle Ages became part of Kievan Rus' and were split between different principalities, including Polotsk, Turov, Vitebsk, and others. Following the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, these lands were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which later was merged into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century.
The demographics of Belarus is about the demographic features of the population of Belarus, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known simply as Byelorussia, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1991 as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia and was also referred to as Soviet Byelorussia or Soviet Belarus by a number of historians. Other names for Byelorussia included White Russia or White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Grodno Region or Hrodna Region, also known as Grodno Oblast or Hrodna Voblasts, is one of the regions of Belarus. It is located in the western part of the country. Its administrative center, Grodno, is also the largest city in the region.
Podlachia, or Podlasie, is a historical region in the north-eastern part of Poland. Between 1513 and 1795 it was a voivodeship with the capital in Drohiczyn. Now the part north of the Bug River is included in the modern Podlaskie Voivodeship with the capital in Białystok.
Vilnius Region is the territory in present-day Lithuania and Belarus that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time.
Western Belorussia or Western Belarus is a historical region of modern-day Belarus which belonged to the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period. For twenty years before the 1939 invasion of Poland, it was the northern part of the Polish Kresy macroregion. Following the end of World War II in Europe, most of Western Belorussia was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Allies, while some of it, including Białystok, was given to the Polish People's Republic. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western Belorussia formed the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Today, it constitutes the west of modern Belarus.
Pruzhany District or Pružany District is district (raion) of Brest Region in Belarus. Its administrative center is Pruzhany.
Russia, as the largest country in the world, has great ethnic diversity, is a multinational state, and is home to over 190 ethnic groups nationwide. According to the population census at the end of 2021, more than 147.1 million people lived in Russia, which is 4.3 million more than in the 2010 census, or 3.03%. At the same time, only 130.587 million census participants indicated their nationality. The top ten largest nations besides Russians included in descending order: Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Avars, Armenians, Ukrainians, Dargins and Kazakhs. Population censuses in Russia allow citizens to report their nationality according not only to their ancestry, but also to self-identification. The 83 federal subjects which together constitute the Russian Federation include:
The Vilna Governorate was a governorate of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire. In 1897, the governorate covered the area of 41,907.9 square kilometres (16,180.7 sq mi) and a population of 1,591,207 inhabitants. The governorate was defined by the Minsk Governorate to the south, the Grodno Governorate to the southwest, the Suwałki Governorate to the west, the Kovno and Courland Governorates to the north, and the Vitebsk Governorate to the east. The administrative centre was located in the city of Vilna. The city also served as the administrative centre of the Vilna Governorate-General, which existed until 1912. The area roughly corresponded to the Vilnius Region, which was later occupied by Germany, Bolsheviks, and Poland.
The Grodno Governorate was a governorate (guberniya) of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire, with its administrative center in Grodno (Hrodna). The governorate encompassed 38,671.5 square kilometres (14,931.1 sq mi) in area and consisted of a population of 1,631,645 inhabitants by 1897. The Grodno Governorate bordered by the Suwałki Governorate to the north, the Vilna Governorate to the northeast, the Minsk Governorate to the east, the Volhynian Governorate to the south, the Kholm Governorate to the west, and the Łomża Governorate to the northwest. The governorate covered areas of the modern Grodno Region of Belarus, part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland, and a small part of Druskininkai, Lazdijai and Varėna districts of Lithuania.
The Polish minority in Belarus numbers officially 288,000 according to 2019 census. However, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland the number is as high as 1,100,000. It forms the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians, at around 3.1% of the total population. An estimated 205,200 Belarusian Poles live in large agglomerations and 82,493 in smaller settlements, with the number of women exceeding the number of men by 33,905. Some estimates by Polish non-governmental sources in the U.S. are higher, citing the previous poll held in 1989 under the Soviet authorities with 413,000 Poles recorded.
Christianity is the main religion in Belarus, with Eastern Orthodoxy being the largest denomination. The legacy of the state atheism of the Soviet era is evident in the fact that a part of the Belarusians are not religious. Moreover, other non-traditional and new religions have sprung up in the country after the end of the Soviet Union.
The Volhynian Governorate, Volhynia Governorate or Volyn Governorate was a province (guberniya) of the Southwestern Krai of the Russian Empire. It consisted of an area of 71,736 square kilometres (27,697 sq mi) and a population of 2,989,482 inhabitants. The governorate bordered the Grodno and Minsk Governorates to the north, the Kiev Governorate to the east, the Podolia Governorate to the south, the Lublin and Siedlce Governorates, and after 1912, the Kholm Governorate and Austria to the west. The administrative centre was Zhitomir, until 1804, its administrative centre was located in Novograd-Volynsky. It corresponded to most of Volyn, Rivne and Zhytomyr Oblasts of Ukraine and some parts of Brest and Gomel Regions of Belarus.
The Belarusian history within the Russian Empire is associated with the history of Belarus from the Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the October Revolution when the present-day Belarus' lands were made part of the Russian Empire.
The Belarusian diaspora refers to emigrants from the territory of Belarus as well as to their descendants.
Historically, Białystok has been a destination for internal and foreign immigration, especially from Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to the Polish minority in 19th century, there was a significant Jewish majority in Białystok. According to Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 66,000, Jews constituted 41,900. In 1936, Białystok had a population of 99,722, of whom: 50.9% (50,758) were Poles, 42.6% (42,482) Jews, 2.1% (2,094) Germans and 0.4% (359) Russians. World War II changed all of this, in 1939, ca. 107,000 persons lived in Białystok, but in 1946 – only 56,759, and to this day there is much less ethnic diversity than in the previous 300 years of the city's history. Currently the city's population is 97% Polish, 2.5% Belarusian and 0.5% of a number of minorities including Russians, Lipka Tartars, Ukrainians and Romani. Most of the modern day population growth is based on internal migration and urbanization.
New York City includes a sizeable Belarusian American population. The New York metropolitan area has one of the largest concentrations of Belarusians in the United States. Many Belarusians live in Brighton Beach and elsewhere in South Brooklyn, along with other ex-Soviet immigrants including Russians and Ukrainians. Around 55,000 people of Belarusian descent live in the New York City metropolitan area, with estimates ranging from 50,000 to 75,000.
Beresteishchyna is a Ukrainian cultural and ethnic region in Western Polesie, in what is primarily the modern Brest Region of Belarus. Located along the western Bug, Beresteishchyna is one of three ethnically-Ukrainian territories in Belarus, alongside Pinshchyna and Starodubshchyna.
