Chełmno Land in the context of "Masuren"

Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship is a voivodeship (province) in northeastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Olsztyn. The voivodeship has an area of 24,192 km (9,341 sq mi) and in 2019 had a population of 1,425,967.

Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship was created on 1 January 1999 from the entire Olsztyn Voivodeship, the western half of Suwałki Voivodeship, and part of Elbląg Voivodeship, pursuant to the Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998. The province's name derives from two historic regions, Warmia and Masuria, although also parts of other regions are located within the province, i.e. of Chełmno Land, Powiśle, Mazovia, Bartia and Natangia.

Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze [pɔˈmɔʐɛ] ; German: Pommern [ˈpɔmɐn] ; Kashubian: Pòmòrskô; Swedish: Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian, Pomeranian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodeships of Poland, while the western part belongs to the German states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg.

Pomerania's historical border in the west is the Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian border Urstromtal, which now constitutes the border between the Mecklenburgian and Pomeranian part of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while it is bounded by the Vistula River in the east. The easternmost part of Pomerania is alternatively known as Pomerelia, consisting of four sub-regions: Kashubia inhabited by ethnic Kashubians, Kociewie, Tuchola Forest and Chełmno Land.

Pomerelia, also known as Eastern Pomerania, Vistula Pomerania, and also before World War II as Polish Pomerania, is a historical sub-region of Pomerania on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in northern Poland.

Gdańsk Pomerania is largely coextensive with Pomerelia, but slightly narrower, as it does not include Chełmno Land and Michałów Land.

The State of the Teutonic Order (German: Staat des Deutschen Ordens, pronounced [ˈʃtaːt dɛs ˌdɔʏtʃn̩ ˈʔɔʁdn̩s] ) was a theocratic state located along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. It was formed by the knights of the Teutonic Order during the early 13th century Northern Crusades in the region of Prussia. In 1237, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword merged with the Teutonic Order of Prussia and became known as its branch – the Livonian Order (while their state, Terra Mariana, covering present-day Estonia, Latvia, and a small part of Russia, became part of the State of the Teutonic Order). At its greatest territorial extent during the early 15th century, the State encompassed Chełmno Land, Courland, Gotland, Livonia, Estonia, Neumark, Pomerelia (Gdańsk Pomerania), Prussia and Samogitia.

Following the battles of Grunwald in 1410 and Wilkomierz in 1435, the State fell into decline. After losing extensive territories in the imposed Peace of Thorn in 1466, the extant territory of its Prussian branch became known as Monastic Prussia (Polish: Prusy zakonne) or Teutonic Prussia (Polish: Prusy krzyżackie). It existed until 1525 as a fiefdom of the Polish Crown. The Livonian branch joined the Livonian Confederation and continued to exist as part of it until 1561.

The Lithuanian Crusade was a series of campaigns by the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order under the pretext of forcibly Christianizing the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Livonian Order occupied Riga in 1202 and in the 1230s they settled in Chełmno Land, a fief of Poland. They first conquered other neighboring Baltic tribes— proto-Latvians (Curonians, Semigallians, Latgalians, Selonians) and Old Prussians—in the Livonian Crusade and Prussian Crusade.

The first raid against the Lithuanians and Samogitians was in 1208. From then on, the orders played a key role in Lithuanian politics, but they were not a direct threat until the 1280s. By that time, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was already a centralized state and could mount defenses. For the next century, the order organized annual colonialist reise (raids) into Samogitian and Lithuanian lands, without great success but at immense human cost. Border regions in Samogitia and Suvalkija became sparsely inhabited wilderness due to ethnic cleansing, although the order gained very little territory. The resulting wars between the Teutonic Order and Lithuania were one of the longest conflicts in the history of Europe.

Gdańsk Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze Gdańskie; Kashubian: Gduńsczé Pòmòrzé; German: Danziger Pommern) is the main geographical region within Pomerelia (also known as Vistula Pomerania, Eastern Pomerania, and previously Polish Pomerania) in northern Poland, covering the bulk of Pomeranian Voivodeship. In contrast to Pomerelia and its synonyms, the term does not cover the historical areas of Chełmno Land and Michałów Land, sometimes with the addition of Lubawa Land.

The area has traditionally been divided into the Kashubia, Kociewie and Tuchola Forest regions. The Lębork and Bytów Land is considered by the Polish historiography a part of Kashubia (and thus Gdańsk Pomerania), while German historiography tends to treat it as a part of Farther Pomerania. Gdańsk Pomerania has been inhabited by ethnic Kashubians, Kociewians and Borowians, respectively. A small portion of Gdańsk Pomerania in the eastern part of the Vistula Spit around the abandoned village of Polski is now part of the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.

The Province of West Prussia (German: Provinz Westpreußen; Kashubian: Zôpadné Prësë; Polish: Prusy Zachodnie) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed in the First Partition of Poland. West Prussia was dissolved in 1829 and merged with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia, but was re-established in 1878 when the merger was reversed and became part of the German Empire. From 1918, West Prussia was a province of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, losing most of its territory to the Second Polish Republic and the Free City of Danzig in the Treaty of Versailles. West Prussia was dissolved in 1919, and its remaining western territory was merged with Posen to form Posen-West Prussia, and its eastern territory merged with East Prussia as the Region of West Prussia district.

West Prussia's provincial capital alternated between Marienwerder (present-day Kwidzyn, Poland) and Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) during its early existence. West Prussia was notable for its ethnic and religious diversity due to immigration and cultural changes, with the population becoming mixed over the centuries. Since the early Middle Ages the bulk of the region was inhabited by West Slavic Lechitic tribes (Pomeranians in the Pomerelia region and Masovians in Kulmerland), while the actual Old Prussians (Pomesanians and Pogesanians) populated only the remaining part of the territory lying to the east of the Vistula River. The Teutonic Order's conquest of the region resulted in German colonization in the 14th century. As a result of Germanisation, Germans became in the middle of the 19th century the most numerous ethnic group in West Prussia as a whole, remaining as such until the dissolution of the province in 1920, though their distribution was uneven: their majority was concentrated in Danzig, the western lands of the province, along the Vistula river, and in the Pomesanian and Pogesanian portion of the province located east of the Vistula, with a small admixture of Poles (Gedanians and Powiślans). Meanwhile, Poles (Kociewians, Borowians and Chełminians) as well as Kashubians continued to predominate in parts of Pomerelian territories west of Vistula and in parts of the Chełmno Land, forming altogether around 36% of the population of the province as a whole. There were also sizeable minorities of Mennonites and Jews settling in the region.