The Lemko Region, also Lemkovyna (native), Lemkivshchyna (Ukrainian), Lemkovshchina (Russian) or Lemkowszczyzna (Polish), is a relatively contiguous area about 140 km long and 25 to 50 km wide in the mountain valleys and foothills between the Dunajec River to the west and the San River to the east. The area is marked by the gently rolling hills of the Lower Beskyd (Bieszczady) range and the higher, more rugged Upper Beskyd range of the Carpathian Mountains. The mountain peaks are as high as 3,000 to 4,000 feet in the eastern part of the region. The Lemko population traditionally inhabited the small villages of this area, in the southern portions of the former Austrian counties (povity) named for their administrative centers: Nowy Targ, Nowy Sacz, Grybow, Gorlice, Jaslo, Krosno, Sanok and Lesko.2 Presently this region belongs to the Krosno and Nowy Sacz palatinates / wojewodztwa.3 As they are still the best known territorial boundaries, the former counties will be used in this paper to identify Lemko villages, whose names will appear first in the Polish form with the Lemko form, and only in the Lemko form thereafter. A map of the Lemko Region is found in Appendix I
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