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Southern Lithuania (Lithuanian: Pietinė Lietuva, German: Litauen Sud) was a government precinct (Valdžios nuovada) of Lithuanian province during World War 1, when Lithuania was under German control.

Geography

Capital of Southern Lithuania was Balstogė, another large city in it's territory was Gardinas. The southern border of Southern Lithuania went along river Bug in the southwest, in the southeast the border is north of the river however and therefore Brest-Litowsk city was excluded. At the east it went relatively near to but did not included Slonim. The capital Balstogė was near the western border.

The northern border went near the city of Druskininkai, which was included in Southern Lithuania. At the north there was the Vilnius Government Precinct of the Lithuanian Province, at the east - Russia, at the southeast - Ukraine, at the southwest and west - Poland.

Great part of the government precinct was covered by forests, Belovezh forest was in it's territory as well as southern part of Dainava forest.

Demography

The population of territory was linguistcially mixed, there were speakers of Lithuanian, Polish, Belarussian, Yiddish and Russian languages, as well as Lithuanian-Polish-Belarussian pidgins. Previous population censae were done by language rather than nationality, therefore nationality, especially in cases of pidgin speakers, who were used to be to one of languages according to political agenda (usually Belarussian), percentages are disputable. What is known is that Yiddish and Russian were spoken mostly by Jews in cities (in some towns Jews made a majority of population). There were probably some Russians too as the area was occupied by Russia previously, but it is impossible to tell how much because censae mixed them with Russian speaking Jews. Most of Polish speaking residents also were living in cities, great part of them were Polish speaking Lithuanians or Belarussians. As for village dwellers, in the north or the the government precinct Lithuanian language dominated, in the west - Polish and the east, Belarussian. The percentage of Belarussian language is hard to count however because most of pidgin speakers were written in censae as Belarussian speakers due to political agenda, while many of them, especially in the north, were actually Lithuanians.

As for the religion, Souther Lithuania was predominantly catholic (both Roman and Greek catolicism was being practicised).

History

After World War 1 ended Lithuania signed a peace treaty with Russia in 1920 which left only the northern part of the Government Precinct of Southern Lithuania in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania (the southern border ran along Nemunas river). Poland however eventually occupied even that part of the territory (see Vilnius region). The northern part of Southern Lithuania, which was ceded to Lithuania by the 1920 treaty, however, was continued to be claimed as part of Lithuania. Only a very small part of it which was attached to Lithuanian SSR in 1940 (Druskininkai and surroundings) remains in Lithuania today though.

Transport

Southern Lithuania had a good railroad network.

• World War 1
• German history
• Lithuanian history
• Government precincts