The Duchy of Cieszyn is one of the parts of historical Silesia. In 1742, after Austria had lost the War with Prussia, most of Silesia was incorporated into Prussia. Only the southernmost portion remained Austrian and it consisted of the Duchy of Opava and the Duchy of Cieszyn. The latter was inhabited by people of Polish, German and Czech ethnic backgrounds.

After the First World War, the entire Austrian Silesia was claimed by the new Czechoslovakia. As in the Cieszyn region the Polish-speaking group was predominant, Poland tried to incorporate the Duchy. The controversy had to be solved by a plebiscite but finally in 1920 the region was simply divided between both countries. Since the Polish-speaking inhabitants were still the majority in the Czech part, most of it was annexed by Poland in 1938. After WWII, however, the 1920 boundary was restored.

The Duchy of Cieszyn is shown on the map of Silesia (right, at the bottom). It is marked in orange and the post-1920 border between Poland and Czechoslovakia is shown in red.

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