| Rawa Voivodeship Palatinatus Ravensis Województwo rawskie | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voivodeship ofPoland¹ | |||||||||
| 1462–1793 | |||||||||
 The Rawa Voivodeship in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1635. | |||||||||
| Capital | Rawa Mazowiecka | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• 1578 | 6,200 km2 (2,400 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1578 | 138,700 | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 1462 | ||||||||
| 25 September 1793 | |||||||||
| Political subdivisions | Three lands divided into 6counties | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Poland | ||||||||
| ¹ Voivodeship of the Kingdom of Poland. The kingdom was part of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569. | |||||||||
Rawa Voivodeship (Polish:Województwo Rawskie) was a unit of administrative division and local government in theKingdom of Poland since 15th century until thepartitions of Poland in 1795. It was part of theGreater Poland Province. Together with thePlock andMasovian Voivodeships it formed the formerDuchy of Masovia.
The voivodeship had its capital in the town ofRawa Mazowiecka, and its origins date back to the second half of the 15th century. In 1462, after the deaths of localPiast dynasty dukes, Mazovian lands of Rawa andGostynin were incorporated into theCrown of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1476, the Land ofSochaczew returned to Poland as well. Borders of Rawa Voivodeship remained unchanged for more than 300 years, until thesecond partition of Poland in 1793, when it was annexed by theKingdom of Prussia. Rawa Voivodeship had four senators in theSenate of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. These were theVoivode of Rawa, theCastellan of Rawa, and the castellans of Sochaczew and Gostynin. Localstarostas resided in Rawa, Sochaczew and Gostynin.
Zygmunt Gloger in his monumental book Historical Geography of the Lands of Old Poland provides this description of Rawa Voivodeship:
“In the 15th century, theDuchy of Mazovia, ruled by local branch of thePiast dynasty, was divided into three parts, one of which was the Duchy of Rawa (...) On January 1, 1462, Siemowit VI died at the age of eighteen. A few weeks later, his teenage brother Wladyslaw II also died. Siemowit VI was the Duke of Plock and Rawa, and after his death, KingKazimierz Jagiellonczyk decided to incorporate the Duchy of Rawa, making it the first part of Mazovia that returned to Poland (...)
Rawa Voivodeship had the area of 92 sq. miles. It was divided into three lands: those of Rawa, Sochaczew and Gostynin. Each land was divided into two counties. The lands were of roughly the same size, and in the mid-16th century, whole voivodeship had 100 Roman Catholic parishes and 15 towns (...)Sejmiks took place at Rawa, Sochaczew andGąbin, during which two deputies to theSejm, and two deputies to the Greater Poland Tribunal were elected (...) Rawa Voivodeship shared its coat of arms with Plock Voivodeship”.
Voivodeship Governor (Wojewoda) seat:
51°45′56″N20°15′17″E / 51.765525°N 20.254807°E /51.765525; 20.254807
