Białowieża forest straddles the border between northern Poland and Belarus. Originally, virtually this entire part of Eastern Europe was covered in forests like those in Białowieża. Those areas that have survived have been subject to long-term conservation over the centuries by Lithuanian princes, Polish kings and finally the Russian tsars, who were the last private owners of the forest from 1888 to 1915 when the whole forest was within the Russian Empire, and was protected as a hunting ground.