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- Lesser Poland Voivodeship (in Polish, województwo malopolskie [v?j?'vut?stf? maw?'p?lsk??]; Slovak: Malopolské vojvodstvo), also known as Malopolska Voivodeship or Malopolska Province,[1] is a voivodeship (province), in southern Poland. It has an area of 15,108 square kilometres (5,833 sq mi), and a population of 3,267,731 (2006).
It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Kraków, Tarnów, Nowy Sacz and parts of Bielsko-Biala, Katowice, Kielce and Krosno Voivodeships, pursuant to the Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998. The province's name recalls the traditional name of a historic Polish region, Lesser Poland, or in Polish: Malopolska. Current Lesser Poland Voivodeship, however, covers only small part of the broader ancient Malopolska region which, together with Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) and Silesia (Slask), formed the early medieval Polish state. Historic Lesser Poland is much larger than the current province. It stretches far north, to Radom, and Siedlce, also including such cities, as Stalowa Wola, Lublin, Kielce, Czestochowa, and Sosnowiec.
The province is bounded on the north by the Swietokrzyskie Mountains (Góry Swietokrzyskie), on the west by Jura Krakowsko-Czestochowska (a broad range of hills stretching from Kraków to Czestochowa), and on the south by the Tatra, Pieniny and Beskidy Mountains. Politically it is bordered by Silesian Voivodeship to the west, Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship to the north, Subcarpathian Voivodeship to the east, and Slovakia to the south.
Almost all of Lesser Poland lies in the Vistula River catchment area. The city of Kraków was one of the European Cities of Culture in 2000. Kraków has railway and road connections with Katowice (expressway), Warsaw, Wroclaw and Rzeszów. It lies at the crossroads of major international routes linking Dresden with Kiev, and Gdansk with Budapest. Located here is the second largest international airport in Poland (after Warsaw's), the John Paul II International Airport.
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1749 - 1799 (50 years)
