RYEZHITZA a town of European Russia at the head of a district in the Vitebsk government, in 56° 30' N. lat. and 27' 2' E. long., 198 miles north-west from Vitebsk on the railway between St Petersburg and Warsaw, near the Ryezhitza, which falls into Lake Luban. Its population increased from 7306 (2902 Jews) in 1867 to about 9000 in 1881; but its importance is mainly historical. The cathedral is a modern building (1846).

Ryezhitza, or, as it is called in the Livonian chronicles, Roziten, was founded in 1285 by Wilhelm von Harburg to keep in subjection the Lithuanians and Letts. The castle was continually the object of hostile attacks. In 1559 the Livonian order, exhausted by the war with Russia, gave it in pawn to Poland, and, though it was captured by the Russians in 1567 and 1577, and had its fortifications dismantled by the Swedes during the war of 1656-1660, it continued Polish till 1772, when White Russia was united with the Russian empire. In early times Ryezhitza was a large and beautiful town.