VILNA, or WILNA, a government of European Russia, lying between N. Lat. 53. 40. and 56. 20., bounded on the N. by that of Kovno, E. by those of Vitebsk and Minsk, S. by that of Grodno, and W. by that of Augustovo in Poland. Length, 270 miles; breadth, about 110; area, 16,100 square miles. It consists of an extensive plain, broken in a few places with hills, which nowhere rise more than 300 feet above the level of the sea. The lower tracts are largely occupied with hogs and marshes, and a great part of the country is covered with primeval forests still uncleared. The rivers all flow directly or indirectly into the Baltic; and most of them are affluents of the Niemen or Memel, which forms the western boundary of the government. Its principal tributaries here are the Vilia and Dubitza. The Duna flows along the north-east border of the government, and the Dange and Beresina rise within its limits, the former flowing to the west, and the latter to the east. In the east and south-east there are many lakes, but none of great size. The soil is in general sandy, and in some places sterile, but, on the whole, not unfavourable for cultivation. The climate is not the mildest; the winters, though short, are severely cold, the spring and autumn moist and foggy, and even the summer, though warm, is by no means unclouded. It is, however, tolerably healthy, and liable to no peculiar diseases. The chief occupation is agriculture, and from it the inhabitants obtain rather more grain than they consume. The chief grain is rye, the next in quantity are wheat and barley, besides which oats, buck-wheat, and pulse are grown. Hemp and flax succeed well, and hops are cultivated sufficient for the breweries. The implements of agriculture are of the rudest kind. The horses are a small but hardy race, and the horned cattle, the goats, the sheep, and the swine, though numerous, are of inferior
breeds. The forests supply much timber for commerce, and yield pitch, tar, and charcoal, and the furs of wolves, bears, martens, and other wild animals. There are no mines, or at least there are none worked; but there are valuable quarries, yielding granite, limestone, agates, flints, chalcedony, and some marble. The manufactures are almost exclusively of the domestic kind; but the distilleries are numerous and on a large scale, and some of the spirits which they yield is smuggled over the Prussian frontier. The commerce is merely the export of a small portion of the product of the soil, and the import of a few foreign luxuries. The government is divided into eleven circles. Pop. (1856) 840,379.