Geographical Position and Origin of Polesie
Polesie is a physical-geographical region located on the territory of the Polesie lowland. As for the location and distribution of the Polesie zone, different literature and authors do not agree. According to the latest research [19], “… Polesie (Polesie lowland, Desnianska lowland) in the basins of the Pripyat River, middle Dnieper, Desna has an area of 300 thousand km2, where 1/3 is occupied by forests (pine forests). The region is located in the southwestern part of the Eastern European plain with the main basins of the Western Bug (Baltic Basin), Pripyat, Dnieper, Desna (Black Sea Basin), Zhizdra (Caspian Basin). There are Lublin Polesie (Poland), Belarusian Polesie (Belarus), Ukrainian Polesie (Ukraine), Bryansk-Zhyzdryn Polesie, Orel-Kaluga Polesie (Russia). Within the Belarusian part - Brest Polesie, Pripyat Polesie, Zagorodye Polesie, Mozyr Polesie, and Gomel Polesie. In Ukraine - Volyn Polesie, Zhytomyr Polesie, Kyiv Polesie, Chernihiv Polesie, Novgorod-Siverskoye Polesie…” Figure 1.
Figure 1. Physical and geographical position of Polesie
The Polesie lowland is a kind of natural province of the mixed forest zone of the Eastern European plain, divided into three large regions. They differ in geographical conditions: northern (left bank of the Pripyat River, located entirely in Belarus), southern (right bank of the Pripyat River and the Dnieper River, mostly located within modern Ukraine), and eastern (left bank of the Dnieper River, the northern part of which lies on the territory of Belarus and the Russian Federation, and the south - Ukraine) (Pledge, 1990).
There is no consensus among researchers about the origin of the toponym Polesie. Most of them are of the opinion that the term is based on - lis. Then Polesie is a forest area bordering the forest. There is an alternative point of view, according to which the toponym originates from the Baltic root pol- / pal-, which denotes a wetland. According to Polesie could be called an area where forest areas alternate with open wetlands (Gadzala, Stashuk, Rokochynskiy, et. al 2017).
Polesie (Polish: Polesie) is a kind of landscape region of the Eastern European physical-geographical country: in the north, it is bounded by the hilly plains of central Belarus, in the east - the Dnieper lowlands, in the south Prydniprovska and Volyn uplands, in the west Pribuzka river.
The origin of Polesie is due to the paleogeographical conditions of the anthropogenic period. It is a flat plain composed of the river, lake, and glacial sediments, with separate heights (Ovruch, up to 316 m), in some places ancient dunes, temperate continental climate, high water content, dense river network with wide valleys, the dominance of turf and podzolic coniferous and deciduous forests, which occupy up to 30% of the area, meadows, swamps, and wetlands. Natural complexes, without occupying large areas, often change each other, which is a characteristic feature of this region.