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The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, [b] formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania [c] and also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic, [d] [9] [10] was a federative real union [11] between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, existing from 1569 to 1795.
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A map showing the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at its maximum extent following the Truce of Деулино, superimposed on present-day national borders. The map shows in red all of the territory that was ruled by Zygmunt III Waza in 1619 (the Polish monarch at that time), which made up the Commonwealth; it can be further divided up into:
The Duchy of Livonia, [2] [a] also referred to as Polish Livonia or Livonia, [b] was a territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that existed from 1561 to 1621. It corresponds to the present-day areas of northern Latvia (Vidzeme and Latgale) and southern Estonia.
Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century brought an end to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Polish sovereignty. Nevertheless, succeeding puppet states often featured the Polish White Eagle or the colours white and red in their respective banners, notably the French Duchy of Warsaw and the German Grand Duchy of Posen.
While the term "Poland" was also commonly used to denote this whole polity, Poland was in fact only part of a greater whole – the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which comprised primarily two parts: the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (Poland proper), colloquially "the Crown"; and; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, colloquially "Lithuania".
Its first administrative center was Kiev, but when the city was given to Imperial Russia in 1667 by Treaty of Andrusovo, the capital moved to Zhytomyr (Polish: Żytomierz), where it remained until 1793. It was the biggest voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by land area, covering, among others, the land of Zaporizhian Cossacks.
"A map of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania including Samogitia and Curland divided according to their dismemberments with the Kingdom of Prussia" from 1799. During the Napoleonic Wars and in their immediate aftermath the borders between partitioning powers shifted several times, changing the numbers seen in the preceding ...