File talk:Rzeczpospolita.png
Poland and Lithuania never had Tobago and Gambia! I'm from Poland and I never heared about it.
From which source is this information?
Check this http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafika:Rzeczpospolita_1600.png
Someone must correct it...
Przemysław Bolisęga
Answer: This map is accurate about Tobago and Gambia. Settlers from Courland, therefore Commonwealth citizens, made colonies at Tobago and Gambia. Jakob von Kettler, a citizen of the Polish fief of Courland, organized all this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Kettler
So, these were German-speakers acting independently without the financial support of the Polish State, but they were citizens from the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. Maybe its because they were ethnic Germans from modern Latvia that Poles don't hear about it much. That's a pity.
I'm not sure about one thing on this map: The Commonwealth legally had Livonia at the same time as Smolensk between 1619 (when it gained Smolensk and east-central Ukraine in Truce of Deulino) and 1629 (when it de facto lost northern or 'rump' Livonia to Sweden). So the "greatest extent" title of this map is only valid for 10 years of history, during which time the colonization of Tobago and Gambia hadn't begun. We should clearly mark the external border of the Commonwealth with a red line, and put "1619-1629" in the title. Tobago and Gambia is still an interesting note that we can have on the side.
---
KASSA / KOSICE was NEVER part of the Ottoman Empire. Please check your historical records more carefully. That area (northern Abauj), like Transylvania, was 'free Hungary' or part of the Habsburg Empire, not the Ottoman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.217.225.211 (talk) 18:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
