Poland

I

Introduction

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland (Polish Rzeczpospolita Polska), country in Central Europe. Communists ruled Poland from 1945 until 1989, when political and economic unrest among Poles resulted in the collapse of the regime and its replacement by a non-Communist coalition. Poland’s capital and largest city is Warsaw.

The name Polska (Poland), applied in the early 11th century, comes from an ancient Slavic tribe known as the Polanie (field or plains dwellers), who settled in the lowlands between the Odra (Oder) and Wisła (Vistula) rivers sometime after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Poland, then united with Lithuania, was one of the major European powers under the Jagiellonian dynasty. When the dynasty came to an end in 1572, Poland entered a long period of decline, culminating in the partition of the country between Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1772, 1793, and 1795.

Poland was again established as a sovereign state after World War I (1914-1918). It was partitioned a fourth time in 1939 by Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). After World War II (1939-1945), Polish territory suffered a substantial net loss, as the land ceded to the USSR in the east was nearly double that acquired from Germany in the west.

Since the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, democratic elections have brought a succession of unstable governments to power. Poland formally joined the European Union (EU) in 2004.

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II

Land and Resources

Poland has a total land area of 3,118,188 sq km (1,203,939 sq mi). It is bordered on the north by the Baltic Sea and Russia; on the east by Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine; on the south by the Czech Republic and Slovakia; and on the west by Germany. The maximum distance from east to west is about 680 km (about 420 mi) and the maximum distance from north to south is about 790 km (about 490 mi). Poland’s borders are marked by the Sudety mountains (Sudetes) in the southwest, the Carpathian Mountains (Karpaty) in the southeast, the Odra and Neisse (Nysa) rivers in the west, and the Bug River in the east. On the northeast, the country is bounded by a section of the Baltic Sea.

A

Natural Regions

Although Poland appears as an unbroken plain on a relief map, it has considerable diversity and complexity. The average elevation is only about 175 m (about 575 ft) above sea level, as compared with the overall European average of about 290 m (about 950 ft), but elevations reach as high as 2,499 m (8,199 ft) atop Mount Rysy in the High Tatry Mountains in the south, and as low as about 2 m (about 6 ft) below sea level in the Wisła delta in the north. Poland is divided into a number of distinct parallel regions that run from east to west. A marked contrast exists between the northern two-thirds of the country and the southern one-third.

The northern zone is a vast region of plains and low hills, divided into the Central Polish Lowlands, the Baltic Heights, and the Coastal Plain. The Central Lowlands are traversed from east to west by a series of large, shallow valleys. To the north of the Central Lowlands is the Baltic Heights region, dotted with hills and lakes. The Coastal Plain consists of a narrow lowland, about 40 to 100 km (about 25 to 60 mi) wide, that runs nearly the entire length of the Baltic Sea. The coastline, 440 km (273 mi) long, is remarkably smooth and regular, the major exceptions being the Pomeranian Bay in the west and the Gulf of Gdańsk in the east. A few good natural harbors are located along the Baltic.

The southern one-third of Poland consists of upland areas of various kinds and adjacent or intervening lowlands. A narrow belt of mountains occupies the extreme south and southwest. The Carpathian Mountains, located on Poland’s southeastern border, include the Tatry and Beskid ranges. The Sudety, another major mountain range, are located on Poland’s southwestern border. North of the mountains are a zone of foothills, the Silesian Plain, and the Lesser Polish Uplands.

B

Rivers and Lakes

Nearly all of Poland is drained into the Baltic Sea by the Wisła and Odra rivers and their tributaries, which include the Bug and the Warta. Other rivers include the Neisse, the Nida, and the Bobr. Poland’s lakes, which number about 9,300, are concentrated in the Baltic Heights and Coastal Plain regions. Śniardwy and Mamry are the two largest. Poland has about 120 artificial reservoirs, situated mainly in the Baltic Heights and the southern mountains.

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