WARSAW (Polish Warszawa) , a province of Poland. Area, 11,313 sq. miles. Population (1931) without the city of Warsaw, 2,532,528, of whom 88.4% are Poles, the rest Jews and Germans. The province of Warsaw, formerly the principality of Mazovia, is situated in the great central plain and drained by the Vistula and its affluents. In the north the Baltic uplands begin; in the south the province includes part of the southern plateau. The plain is sandy and not very fertile, and suffers much from the periodic inundations of the Vistula, particu larly near the confluence of the Bug and Narew. But the thrifty Mazovian peasant has prosecuted the cultivation of the soil with considerable success. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley, wheat and potatoes, while beetroot is cultivated for sugar in some parts of the province. Gardening and bee-keeping are also prac tised. There are large forest areas particularly in the north where there are also wide marshes especially on the Wkra near Mlawa. The shipping of the Vistula is an important occupation, as are the agricultural industries : flour milling, distilleries, breweries and sugar factories. Saw mills and match factories and especially tanneries are important. There is an important industrial area
including the metal industries, the manufacture of machinery, locomotives and other goods at Warsaw and the textile manufac tures of Zyrarclow, forming a link between Warsaw and Lodz.
The chief towns are Warsaw (q.v.), Plock (pop. 32,777), Wloclawek (pop. 56,277), Zyrard6w, Gostynin, Grojec, Kutno, Nowo-Minsk, Plonsk, Radzymin, Skierniewice, Ciechan6w, Lipno, Mlawa, Rypin, Pultusk and Przasnysz.
Mazovia was a semi-independent principality of Poland not finally united to Poland till 1529, when its numerous gentry played a great part in the democratic evolution of the Polish Constitution. The region has sent waves of colonists into East Prussia, Lithuania and even the Ukraine. The bishops of Plock originally had all Mazovia as their diocese, but to-day there is an archbishopric at Warsaw, which in the 16th century succeeded Plock as the capital city. Warsaw became the political centre of Poland when the advance of Germany in the west and Polish colonization of Lithuania and the Ukraine threw the political cen tre of the State eastwards from Poznan and Cracow.