A Map of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Dutchy of Lithuania Including Samogitia and Curland, Divided According to their Disemberments with the Kingdom of Prussia

Second edition of this finely engraved map by William Faden, Geographer to the King and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Much of the information for this map came from a twenty-four sheet map by Rizzi Zannoni published in Paris in 1772, shortly after the first partition. A note lower left states that the map is updated to March 1797. This map includes an ornately bordered small inset town plan of Warsaw and a table showing the populations of Lithuania-Poland prior to ‘dismemberment’ and of the individual Russian, Austrian and Prussian provinces after the partitions. Also noted is the total number of Jews in the provinces. From 1569, Poland and Lithuania were united in a union called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and enjoyed several decades of prosperity before entering a period of economic, political and military decline. Its increasing weakness in the late eighteenth century led to the progressive partitioning of the union by the Russians, Austrians and Prussians in between 1772 and 1795, which resulted in the elimination of an independent Poland for the next 123 years.