Podziały polityczno-administracyjne na Ziemi Podlaskiej w ciągu tysiąclecia

The presented text together with the cartographic illustrations is devoted to the political-administration divides in Ziemia Podlaska. The region that is situated at the meeting point of cultures, languages and religions, has played a very important role in the history of the Polish state and the Polish nation. In the research that has been conducted, also the factors have been taken into consideration that influenced the presently existing Podlasie – the territory near the border with Byelorussia. Apart from the geopolitical and cultural aspects , also attention has been paid to economical questions, as well as to the lack of a center integrating the whole of social life, and the blurring, with time, borders. The historical Podlasie has always had a dualistic geographical arrangement – it has been latitudinally divided by the River Bug. Hence, the objectively existing conditions have had a destabilizing effect on it and have made economical development more difficult. The divides and configurations of political and administrative borders that ran through Ziemia Podlaska during the period that is presented in the space-time perspective are the point of departure for the explanation of many phenomena happening in the past and in the present, and for further studies, including historical, geographical ones as well as ones connected with political science. They may have both cognitive significance and be applied in practice. On the one hand they are useful for all sorts of academic analyses, and on the other, they may be used by the local authorities in their work connected with forming various functional-spatial connections in the Eastern part of the country.