Ilūkste county

Ilūkste county was a historic county of the Courland Governorate and of the Republic of Latvia. Its capital was Ilūkste, but the most populous settlement was Grīva immediately south of Daugavpils.

History

Initially, the Captaincy of Illuxt was as a subdivision of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. In 1795, the Duchy was incorporated into the Russian Empire, and in 1819 Illuxt County became one of the ten counties of the Courland Governorate. It was forming a wedge between Vilna and Vitebsk governorates.
After the establishment of the Republic of Latvia in 1918, the Ilūkstes apriņķis existed until 1949, when the Council of Ministers of the Latvian SSR split it into the newly created districts of Grīva, Aknīste and Ilūkste.

Demographics

At the time of the Russian Empire Census of 1897, Kreis Illuxt had a population of 66,461. Of these, 28.5% spoke Latvian, 17.3% Belarusian, 17.1% Polish, 15.2% Russian, 10.5% Lithuanian and 9.6% Yiddish as their native language.