TOWNS AND REGIONS OF BELARUS

First towns on the territory of Belarus came into being in the 9th -13th centuries. They looked like paled fortified settlements. The towns were springing up on former sites of ancient settlements of the Iron Age and were outgrowing fortified settlements, feudal castles, and border strongholds.

They performed the functions of administrative, commercial and handicraft, cultural and military centers of definite territories, whose size depended on a number of factors. In fact, some settlements, known as towns ("grady"), were castles and strongholds. Towns were located in geographically advantageous places: at trade road crossways, near rivers or lakes, what contributed to their economic activity. 35 towns on Belarusian lands are mentioned in the annals of the 9th -13th centuries. The most ancient of them, mentioned as early as in the 9th -10th centuries, were Polatsk, Turau and Zaslavl.

In the 17th century there were 37 towns and 320 small towns. Towns were springing up near feudal castles, yards, in places of rural settlements and in new places. The number of town residents increased due to inflow of rural population, inhabitants of other towns and foreigners. To attract new inhabitants, the town owners established tax privileges or exempted completely the town residents from taxes for some time. An important fact that enhanced the prestige of urban life was self-management, like in the German city of Magdeburg - the Magdeburg right that was being granted to Belarusian towns from the end of the 14th century. In 1390 it was granted to Brest, in 1391 - to Grodno, in 1498 - to Polatsk, in 1499 - to Minsk etc.

At the end of the 17th - the first part of the 18th century, Belarusian towns fell into decay caused by military cataclysms; they were the War between Russia and Rzeczpospolita (Commonwealth) in 1654-1667 and the North War in 1700-1721. Urban population decreased by 2,5 times. Brest, Vitebsk, Grodno, Dokshitsy, Kletsk, Kobrin, Lida, Minsk, Mir, Novogrudok, Nesvizh, Pinsk, Slutsk and other towns suffered from destruction or burning. Feudal lords aspired to use towns weakening for consolidation of their possessions in them in the form of legal property. Urban possessions of Catholic Church were increasing. To normalize city functioning the king authority and private owners took measures aimed at city settlement fortification and economic activity development. Till the end of 18th century towns came out of the destruction condition and achieved certain progress in economic life. Features of capitalistic relations strengthened at handicraft and commercial production. Enterprises that used hired labour, work division and even machines existed in Vitebsk, Grodno, Mogilev, Minsk, Nesvizh, Polatsk, Slutsk etc. At some of them, especially at those that were of feudal lords possessions, capitalistic elements were combined with serfdom features, for example, with the use of serfdom workers. Volume of foreign trade increased though main commercial deal trends, import and export structure remained traditional.

At the turn of 18-19 centuries, there were 40 towns on the territory of Belarus in which 93 thousands of people lived. As of the middle of 19 century urban population run up to 244 thousand of people. During the years of the 1st world and civil wars following the decline of all branches of economy, population of many towns of Belarus decreased. In 1917, 360. 4 thousand people lived in towns. In 1925, most of city settlements were small towns (up to 10 thousand of people). Altogether in towns at that time 637.7 thousand people lived.

Transformation of Belarus into the country with industrial and agrarian economy in the years of 1930 directly affected urbanization processes. Industrial enterprises, as a rule, concentrated in big towns. They were Minsk (1932 - 163.1 thousand), Vitebsk - (117.3 thousand), Gomel (109.9 thousand), Bobruisk (62.3 thousand), Mogilev (56.9 thousand people).
Working reserves, best means of transport, facilities of providing electric power, water etc were concentrated here. During the first post-war years, urbanization process extensively was developing under the influence of huge destruction and immense people losses. Only in 1972, BSSR reached its prewar population level.

From 1950 up to now, urban population increased by 4,3 times and its share in common quantity of republic population was 67,6% that, according to generally adopted world classifications, permitted to refer Belarus to territories with very big (more than 60%) degree of urbanization. In the beginning of 1992 there were 102 towns in Belarus, among them 12 (without Minsk) with the population more than 100 thousand people and also 109 villages of town type. 81 % of all city settlements are small towns with population up to 20 thousand people. They form relatively dense net, but at the same time 17,3 % of urban population lived there. To a considerable degree their weak development can be explained by loss of the role which they played in the old times in their agricultural region. However, the fact of their presence in the modern urban landscape of Belarus forms certain social climate typical for city settling of the country.

By 01.01.1998 there are 102 towns, 110 settlements of town type with the population 7 mln. 126.6 thousand of people in Belarus. Quick urbanization of modern life is a result of rapid development of national economy of Belarus. It is manifested in increasing the quantity of city population and in change of its social and professional composition and in other factors.