This massive collection took over 20 years to publish all 15 volumes. The gazetteer was published when officially there was no Poland in existence. From 1772 to 1918, Poland was dominated by three empires: Austria (later known as Austria-Hungary), Russia and Prussia. The gazetteer contains a great wealth of information on cities, towns, and villages, as well as mountains, rivers, and other geographic points of interest in the lands that were once a part of the old Kingdom of Poland. Although some areas are given preference, namely the region controlled by the Russian Empire, the region of Galicia, including Halychyna/Eastern Galicia is well represented.

This reference can be challenging to use. However, this should not dissuade even the beginner genealogist from attempting to use it. The gazetteer presents information in long text form in Polish. The text may include archaic terms and cryptic abbreviations which makes the gazetteer somewhat complex. If you don’t understand Polish, you’ll have to find a translator or use a very good dictionary (though the complex grammar of Polish makes using a dictionary not an easy task for someone not familiar with Slavic grammar). Even if you have a fair knowledge of Polish, you many not understand all the meanings of all of the words due to the many archaic terms. Remember to check the beginning of each volume for an index to the abbreviations used.  Click on the images below to see the index of abbreviations.

When there are several villages with the same name, each unique entry is separated by a number. Check the county (powiat in Polish, povit in Ukrainian) to determine which particular village is yours. Remember that the county is often give in its adjectival form in Polish. (In Polish grammar it makes sense since it is describing what kind of county it is.)

The adjectival form closely resembles the form you are used to seeing. So long as you know that Lwowski powiat is the same as the powiat of Lwów, you won’t have a problem.

Examples of adjectival forms versus the standard form (for you linguists, that’s the proper noun in the nominative case!).

Between the two world wars, Poland ruled the region of Halychyna/Eastern Galicia.  Here are the three provinces (województwa in Pol./ voievodstva ( воєводства) in Ukr.) in southeastern Poland at that time:

Here are the counties (powiaty in Pol./ povity (повіти) in Ukr.) that made up each of the three provinces above: