Воеводства Польши: административное деление

Highest level administrative division of Poland

A voivodeship ('/v//ɔɪ//v//oʊ//d//ʃ//ɪ//p/ VOYvohdship; województwo ; plural: województwa ) is the highest level administrative division of Poland, corresponding to a province in many other countries. The term has been in use since the 14th century and is commonly translated into English as "province". The Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998, which went into effect on 1 January 1999, reduced the number of voivodeships to sixteen. These 16 replaced the 49 former voivodeships that had existed from 1 July 1975, and bear a greater resemblance (in territory, but not in name) to the voivodeships that existed between 1950 and 1975. Today's voivodeships are mostly named after historical and geographical regions, while those prior to 1998 generally took their names from the cities on which they were centered. The new units range in area from under (Opole Voivodeship) to over (Masovian Voivodeship), and in population from nearly one million (Opole Voivodeship) to over five million (Masovian Voivodeship). Administrative authority at the voivodeship level is shared between a government appointed governor called a voivode (wojewoda), an elected assembly called a [[Voivodeship sejmik, and an executive board (zarząd województwa) chosen by that assembly, headed by a voivodeship marshal (marszałek województwa). Voivodeships are further divided into powiats ('counties') and gminas ('communes' or 'municipalities'), the smallest administrative divisions of Poland.

Some English language sources, in historic contexts, speak of palatinates rather than voivodeships. The term "palatine" traces back to the Latin palatinus. More commonly used now is province or voivodeship. The latter is a loanword calque hybrid formed on the Polish województwo. Some writers argue against rendering województwo in English as province, on historic grounds. Before the third and last Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which occurred in 1795, each of the main constituent regions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Lithuania, and Royal Prussia—was sometimes idiosyncratically referred to as a "Province" (prowincja). According to the argument, a province (such as Greater Poland) cannot consist of a number of subdivisions ("województwa", the plural of "województwo") that are likewise called "provinces". This is an antiquarian consideration, as " province" has not been used in this sense in Poland for over two centuries. The former larger political units, all now obsolete, can be referred to in English as they were, "regions". The Polish województwo, designating a second tier Polish or Polish–Lithuanian administrative unit, derives from wojewoda, (etymologically, a 'warlord', 'war leader' or 'leader of warriors', but now simply the governor of a województwo) and the suffix ztwo (a "state or condition"). The English voivodeship, which is a hybrid of the loanword voivode and ship (the latter a suffix that calques the Polish suffix ztwo), has never been much used and is absent from many dictionaries. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it first appeared in 1792, spelled "woiwodship", in the sense of "the district or province governed by a voivode." The word subsequently appeared in 1886 also in the sense of "the office or dignity of a voivode." Poland's Commission on Standardization of Geographic Names outside the Republic of Poland, prefers the form which omits the 'e', recommending the spelling "", for use in English.

Competences and powers at voivodeship level are shared between the voivode (governor), the sejmik (regional assembly) and the marshal. In most cases these institutions are all based in one city, but in Kuyavian Pomeranian and Lubusz Voivodeship the voivode's offices are in a different city from those of the executive and the sejmik. Voivodeship capitals are listed in the table below. The voivode is appointed by the Prime Minister and is the regional representative of the central government. The voivode acts as the head of central government institutions at regional level (such as the police and fire services, passport offices, and various inspectorates), manages central government property in the region, oversees the functioning of local government, coordinates actions in the field of public safety and environment protection, and exercises special powers in emergencies. The voivode's offices collectively are known as the urząd wojewódzki. The sejmik is elected every five years. (The first of the five year terms began in 2018; previous terms lasted four years.)) Elections for the sejmik fall at the same time as that of local authorities at powiat and gmina level. The sejmik passes by laws, including the voivodeship's development strategies and budget. It also elects the marszałek and other members of the executive, and holds them to account. The executive (zarząd województwa), headed by the marszałek drafts the budget and development strategies, implements the resolutions of the sejmik, manages the voivodeship's property, and deals with many aspects of regional policy, including management of European Union funding. The marshal's offices are collectively known as the urząd marszałkowski.

Polish voivodeships since 1999 Abbr. Flag Coat of arms Ter. code Voivodeship Polish name Capital city/cities Area (km2) Population (2022) Car plates DS 02 Lower Silesian dolnośląskie Wrocław 19,947 2,903,000 145 D KP 04 Kuyavian Pomeranian kujawsko pomorskie Bydgoszcz, Toruń 17,971 2,056,000 115 C LU 06 Lublin lubelskie Lublin 25,123 2,104,000 83 L LB 08 Lubusz lubuskie Gorzów Wielkopolski, Zielona Góra 13,988 995,000 72 F LD 10 Łódź łódzkie Łódź 18,219 2,443,000 134 E MA 12 Lesser Poland małopolskie Kraków 15,183 3,399,000 225 K MZ 14 Masovian mazowieckie Warsaw 35,559 5,432,000 153 W OP 16 Opole opolskie Opole 9,412 966,000 104 O PK 18 Subcarpathian podkarpackie Rzeszów 17,846 2,098,000 119 R PD 20 Podlaskie podlaskie Białystok 20,187 1,182,000 58 B PM 22 Pomeranian pomorskie Gdańsk 18,323 2,355,000 128 G SL 24 Silesian śląskie Katowice 12,333 4,501,000 364 S SK 26 Holy Cross świętokrzyskie Kielce 11,710 1,216,000 105 T WN 28 Warmian Masurian warmińsko mazurskie Olsztyn 24,173 1,423,000 59 N WP 30 Greater Poland wielkopolskie Poznań 29,826 3,486,000 117 P ZP 32 West Pomeranian zachodniopomorskie Szczecin 22,905 1,694,000 74 Z Seat of voivode. Seat of sejmik and marshal.

According to 2017 Eurostat data, the GDP per capita of Polish voivodeships varies notably and there is a large gap between the richest per capita voivodeship (being the Masovian Voivodeship at 33,500 EUR) and the poorest per capita (being the Lublin Voivodeship at 14,400 EUR).