Berestia land. The northwestern part of Ukrainian ethnic territory, bounded by the Buh River, Prypiat River, Yaselda River, and Narva (Narew) River. Its main cities were Berestia, Dorohychyn, Kobryn, and Kamianets. From 1080 to 1150 the land belonged to the Turiv-Pynsk principality, later to the principality of Volhynia, and after 1320 to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. From 1569 to 1795 it constituted the Brest-Litovsk voivodeship of the Polish Commonwealth. After the third partition of the Commonwealth (1795), the territory was annexed to the Russian Empire.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]