Industrial city in northeastern Poland, Białystok (Rus., Belostok) sits nestled in a heavily wooded area that divides central Poland from Belarus and Lithuania. The town, originally founded in 1320, remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, after which it became part of Prussia. In 1807, Białystok was incorporated into the Russian Empire, and in 1921 it fell under the aegis of the Second Polish Republic. As it shifted between these regimes, Białystok grew into a multiethnic, industrial city, home to Poles, Russians, Germans, Lithuanians, and an unusually large Jewish population—both in absolute numbers and in its percentage of the total population.
