The Vilna Governorate was a province (guberniya) of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire. In 1897, the governorate covered an area of 41,907.9 square kilometres (16,180.7 sq mi) and had a population of 1,591,207 inhabitants. The governorate was defined by the Minsk Governorate to the south, the Grodno Governorate to the southwest, the Suwałki Governorate to the west, the Kovno and Courland Governorates to the north, and the Vitebsk Governorate to the east. The capital was located in Vilna (Vilnius). The city also served as the capital of Vilna Governorate-General, which existed until 1912. The area roughly corresponded to the Vilnius Region, which was later occupied by Germany, Bolsheviks, and Poland.

The first governorates, Vilnius Governorate (consisting of eleven uyezds or districts) and Slonim Governorate, were established after the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Just a year later, on December 12, 1796, by order of Tsar Paul I they were merged into one governorate, called the Lithuanian Governorate, with its capital in Vilnius. By order of Tsar Alexander I on September 9, 1801, the Lithuanian Governorate was split into the Lithuania-Vilnius Governorate and the Lithuania-Grodno Governorate. After 39 years, the word "Lithuania" was dropped from the two names by Nicholas I.

In 1843, another administrative reform took place, creating the Kovno Governorate (Kovno in Russian) out of seven western districts of the Vilnius Governorate, including all of Samogitia. The Vilnius Governorate received three additional districts: Vileyka and Dzisna from the Minsk Governorate and Lida from Grodno Governorate. It was divided to districts of Vilnius, Trakai, Disna, Oshmyany, Lida, Vileyka and Sventiany. This arrangement remained unchanged until World War I. A part of the Vilnius Governorate was then included in the Lithuania District of Ober-Ost, formed by the occupying German Empire.

During the Polish–Soviet War, the area was annexed by Poland. The Council of Ambassadors and the international community (with the exception of Lithuania) recognized Polish sovereignty over the Vilnius region in 1923. In 1923, the Wilno Voivodeship was created, which existed until 1939, when the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania and Poland and returned most, but not all, of the Polish-annexed land to Lithuania.

From Stanisław Plater's estimates in 1825

Language	People
Lithuanian	780,000
Yiddish	180,000
Polish	100,000
Russians	80,000
Ruthenians	50,000
Tatars	10,000
Total	1,200,000

In 1834, the Vilnius Governorate had about 789,000 inhabitants; by 1897, the population had grown to about 1,591,000 residents (37 per km).

According to the Russian Empire census on 28 January [O.S. 15 January] 1897, The Vilna Governorate had a population of 1,591,207, including 790,880 men and 800,327 women. The majority of the population indicated Belarusian to be their mother tongue, which followed by a significant Lithuanian and Jewish speakers.

Linguistic composition of the Vilna Governorate in 1897

Language	Native speakers	Percentage
White Russian	891,903	56.05
Lithuanian	279,720	17.58
Jewish	202,374	12.72
Polish	130,054	8.17
Great Russian	78,623	4.94
German	3,873	0.24
Tatar	1,969	0.12
Little Russian	919	0.06
Latvian	471	0.03
Gypsi	182	0.01
Others	1,119	0.07
Total	1,591,207	100.00

Religious composition of the Vilna Governorate in 1897

Faith	Male	Female	Both
			Number	Percentage
Roman Catholic	460,627	475,222	935,849	58.81
Eastern Orthodox	214,225	201,070	415,295	26.10
Judaism	98,193	106,493	204,686	12.86
Old Believer	12,686	12,987	25,673	1.61
Lutheranism	2,172	2,291	4,463	0.28
Islam	2,572	1,803	4,375	0.27
Karaite	251	325	576	0.04
Reformed	92	85	177	0.01
Armenian Catholic	22	25	47	0.00
Armenian Apostolic	9	3	12	0.00
Mennonite	2	0	2	0.00
Anglican	0	2	2	0.00
Other Christian denomination	19	16	35	0.00
Other non-Christian denomination	10	4	14	0.00
Total	790,880	800,327	1,591,207	100.00

Between 1944 and 1946, about 150,000 people, mostly but not all of Polish extraction left the area for Poland (about 10% of this group may have been Lithuanians hoping to escape Soviet rule). Between 1955 and 1959, another 46,000 Polish-speakers left Lithuania (see the Demographic history of the Vilnius region). Meanwhile, the Jewish population of the area, just as in the rest of Lithuania, was virtually exterminated by the Nazis during World War II. As of 2001, ethnic Lithuanians once again predominated within the city of Vilnius (59%), but the area of the former governorate as a whole remained about 62% Polish, with the percentage of Russians (8.6) and Belarusians (4.4) having dwindled to a tiny minority.

The counties (uezd) of the Vilna Governorate in 1897 was composed of seven uezds as follows:

County		Capital and the largest city		Arms of capital	Area	Population (1897 census)
Transliteration name	Russian Cyrillic		1897
Vileyskiy	Вилейскій	Vileyka	3.560		6,363.13 km (2,456.82 sq mi)	208,013
Vilenskiy	Виленскій	Vilna	154.132		6,185.14 km (2,388.10 sq mi)	363,313
Disnenskiy	Дисненскій	Disna	6.756		5,779.30 km (2,231.40 sq mi)	204,923
Lidskiy	Лидскій	Lida	9.323		5,606.20 km (2,164.57 sq mi)	205,767
Oshmyanskiy	Ошмянскій	Oshmyany	7.214		6,885.39 km (2,658.46 sq mi)	233,559
Smorgonskiy	Сморгонскій	Smorgon	---		5,979.20 km (2,308.58 sq mi)	241,565
Sventsyanskiy	Свѣнцянскій	Sventsyany	6.025		5,228.03 km (2,018.55 sq mi)	172,231
Trokskiy	Трокскій	Troki	3.240		5,862.27 km (2,263.44 sq mi)	203,401

Russian authorities periodically performed censuses. However, they reported strikingly different numbers:

Year	Total	Lithuanians		Poles		Belarusians		Russians		Jews		Other
1862	838,464	418,880	50%	154,386	18%	146,431	17%	14,950	2%	76,802	9%	27,035	3%
1865	891,715	210,273	24%	154,386	17%	418,289	47%	27,845	3%	76,802	9%	4,120	0%
1883	1,192,000	417,200	35%	281,312	24%	239,592	20%	—		176,416	15%	77,480	7%
1897	1,561,713	274,414	18%	126,770	8%	880,940	56%	75,803	5%	197,929	13%	5,857	0%
1909	1,550,057	231,848	15%	188,931	12%	570,351	37%	408,817	26%	146,066	9%	4,094	0%

Name	In office
Yakov Bulgarov	1797–1799
Ivan Friesell	1799–1801
Dmitry Lanskoy	1802–1804
Ivan Rickman	1804–1806
Prokopy Bogmevsky	1806–1808
Nikolay Brusilov	1808–1810
Aleksandr Lavinsky	1811–1816
Friedrich Drutsky-Lyubetsky	1816–1823
Pyotr Gorn	1823–1830
Dmitry Obreskov	1830–1832
Grigory Doppelmayr	1832–1836
Dmitry Bantysh-Kamensky	1836–1838
Yuri Dolgorukov	1838–1840
Aleksey Semyonov	1840–1844
Nikolay Zherebtsov	1844–1846
Mikhail Begichev	1846–1851
Arkady Rosset	1851–1857
Mikhail Pokhvisnev	1857–1863
Ivan Galler	1863–1863
Stepan Panyutin	1863–1868
Ivan Shestakov	1868–1869
Yegor Steblin-Kamensky	1869–1882
Aleksandr Zhemchuzhnikov	1882–1885
Nikolay Grevenits	1885–1895
Aleksandr Frese	1895–1896
Ivan Cheplevsky	1896–1899
Nikolai Gruzinsky	1899–1901
Viktor Wahl	1901–1902
Konstantin Palen	1902–1905
Sergey Tatishchev	1905–1906
Dmitry Lyubimov	1906–1912
Pyotr Veryovkin	1912–1916
Aleksandr Tolstoy	1916–1917

• Ethnic history of the Vilnius region
• History of Vilnius
• Wilno Voivodeship
• Vileyka Voblast

54°41′00″N 25°17′00″E / 54.6833°N 25.2833°E / 54.6833; 25.2833