Volok ( lt, valakas, pl, włóka) was a late medieval unit of land measurement in the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Li ...

Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Królestwo Polskie; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a state in Central Europe. It may refer to: Historical political entities *Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031 *Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom exist ...

and later, the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

. It was equal, on average, to in Lithuania or to in Poland. It was subdivided into 30 or 33

morgen A morgen was a unit of measurement of land area in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania and the Dutch colonies, including South Africa and Taiwan. The size of a morgen varies from . It was also used in Old Prussia, in the Balkans, Norway ...

s. Volok was also a unit that determined taxation and other duties to the state. Previously, taxes and duties were based on the number of households (see, for example,

1528 census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania The census of 1528 was the first census carried out in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was not a true census since it had limited scope: it only sought to count peasant households ( lt, dūmas) for military purposes. The Grand Duchy used a conscri ...

that recorded households as a measure of military duty) or number of horses/bulls needed to work the land. Such system was not exact: households varied greatly in size and in wealth. Therefore, the introduction of voloks marked an important transition to taxes based on area (width times length). In Lithuania, it was introduced during the

Volok Reform Volok may refer to: * Volok (unit), a unit of land measurement * Volok Reform, land reform in the 16th-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania People with the surname * Bill Volok (1910–1991), American football player * Ilia Volok (born 1965), Russian ...

that began in 1547. Officially, voloks were abandoned as a unit after the

emancipation reform of 1861 The emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia, also known as the Edict of Emancipation of Russia, (russian: Крестьянская реформа 1861 года, translit=Krestyanskaya reforma 1861 goda – "peasants' reform of 1861") was the first ...

, but survived in everyday use until the introduction of the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...

in 1921.

References

Units of area Obsolete units of measurement Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Grand Duchy of Lithuania {{Poland-stub