Galicia, region, eastern Europe, along the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, formerly an Austrian Crown land, now a part of south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine. Galicia was an important Slavic principality in the 11th and 12th centuries and later belonged to Poland. In 1772, as a result of the first partition of Poland, Galicia became a part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire. It remained an Austrian Crown land until 1918, when it was claimed by the new Polish Republic. In 1919, West Galicia was assigned to Poland by the Treaty of Versailles following World War I (1914-1918), and East Galicia was later given the right of self-determination. That same year East Galicia was granted autonomy under a Polish protectorate that endured for 20 years. This decree was approved in 1923 by the Council of Ambassadors, an agency of the League of Nations. Galicia comprised the Polish provinces of Kraków, Lwów, Stanisławów, and Tarnopol.

Following the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1939, Stanisławów, Tarnopol, and part of Lwów, populated mainly by Ukrainians and Belorussians, were included in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. Under a Polish-Soviet agreement in 1945, Galicia was assigned to the USSR and incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, with Tarnopol changed to Ternopol, Lwów to Lvov (renamed Lviv, 1991), and Stanisławów becoming the Stanislav Oblast (renamed the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, 1962). After Ukraine achieved independence in 1991, the names were changed to Ternopil, L’viv, and Ivan-Frankivs’k regions (Ukrainian, Oblysty).