Its administrative center and namesake, Grodno , is the largest city in the region. As of , it has a population of , Located in western Belarus , it lies on the Neman River. The region borders Minsk region to the east, Brest region to the south, Poland Podlaskie Voivodeship to the west and Vitebsk region and Lithuania Alytus and Vilnius counties to the north.
This region comprised the westernmost "borderlands" of the early East Slavs possibly the tribal union Dregoviches on the lands of the Balts in the 6th—9th centuries CE. The city of Grodno is first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle under the year as Goroden. It was located at the crossing of numerous trading routes, possibly originating as far as the late 10th century. It also became the capital of a poorly attested but separate principality.
As a result, Grodno and its surroundings were included in Ethnographic Lithuania for long thereafter. In , the area became administratively divided between the newly established Trakai Voivodeship and the Vilnius Voivodeship.
The strong economic development of the area continued during the reign of Casimir 's son — Duke Alexander Jagiellon of Lithuania r. According to medieval surveys, Grodno had 35 streets and houses in During his reign, Grodno became a royal headquarters and began to host sessions of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth Senate and Parliament Sejm. In , on the king's order, the castle of Grodno was rebuilt in Renaissance architectural style by Scoto di Parma. At the beginning of the 17th century, Grodno, one of the most developed and important cities in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, was traditionally recognized as the third capital of the commonwealth.
Deterioration of the province's status began with the Livonian War between and , which pitted the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish Empire in a lengthy and exhausting military conflict against the Tsardom of Russia. Between and , the province regained some of its previous status when Antoni Tyzenhaus , the Treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and administrator of Polish royal estates, governed the capital and the province.
