Brest region

Brest Region or Brest Oblast or Brest Voblast (Belarusian: Брэ́сцкая во́бласць; Bresckaja vobłasć; Russian: Бре́стская о́бласть; Brestskaya Oblast; Polish: Obwód brzeski) is one of the regions of Belarus. Its administrative center is Brest.

Important cities within the region include: Baranovichi, Brest, and Pinsk.

Geography

It is located in the southwestern part of Belarus, bordering the Podlasie and Lublin voivodships of Poland on the west, the Volyn Oblast and Rivne Oblast of Ukraine on the south, the Grodno Region and Minsk Region on the north, and Gomel Region on the east. The region covers at total area of 32,800 km², about 15,7% of the national total.

Kametnets District of Brest Region in few kilometers to the South-West from Vysokaye town on the Bug River the western extreme point of Belarus is situated. 2,7% of the territory are covered with Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park, 9,8% are covered with 17 wildlife preserves of national importance.

It is often dubbed the Western gateway to Belarus. Geographically, the Brest Region belongs to the area known as Polesia. The area of the region was part of the Second Polish Republic from 1921 until 1939 largely as the Polesie Voivodeship, when it was joined to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Northeastern part of it was administrated as part of Nowogrodek Voivodeship.

Demographics

The Brest Region has a population of 1,394,800, about 14,7% of the national total. About 47.2% of the region's population are men, and the remaining 52.8% are women. Number of inhabitants per 1 km2 is 43.

Of the major nationalities living in the Brest Region, 1,262,600 are Belarusians (85%), 128,700 (8.6%) are Russians, 57,100 (3.8%) are Ukrainians, and 27,100 (1.8%) are Poles. 53.7% of the population speak Belarusian and 42.6% speak Russian as their native language.

Brest is the province with the highest birth rate in all of Belarus. As of 2008, the birth rate was 12.0 per 1000 and death rate was 13.4 per 1000.

Tourism

There are about 70 travel agencies in Brest Region, most of them provide both agent and operator activities. Main tourist attractions in the region are Belovezhskaya Puscha and Brest Fortress.