Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe
The Land of the Jews
By the end of the 18th century, the majority of the Jewish people were living in Eastern Europe within the jurisdiction of Czarist Russia. The Russian government restricted the movement of Jews and allowed them to settle in a region called the Pale of Settlement. It was a large territory that included most of present-day Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania and Central Poland. Most Jews in that area lived in villages and small towns (shtetls) in overcrowded conditions and abject poverty and struggled to find sources of livelihood.
According to a population census taken by the Czarist government in 1897, the number of Jews living in the Pale of Settlement was estimated at five million.