Shtetl is a Yiddish term, with no specific legal status. Shtetls varied in size but were considered larger than villages and smaller than cities. Jewish settlement in Polish lands began in the 13th century. From the 16th century, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, nobles created market towns on private land as a way to develop local economies. They often employed Jews to function as administrators, traders, and tradespeople in these communities that eventually became shtetls. After the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, many of these shtetls came under the jurisdiction of the Russian Empire in the Pale of Settlement. The shtetls began to decline due to emigration and urbanization in the early 20th century, and they were decimated in the Holocaust and World War II.
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