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 Poland| Facts & Figures |
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| President: Lech Kaczynski (2005) Prime Minister: Donald Tusk
(2007) Land area: 117,571 sq mi (304,509 sq km);
total area: 120,728 sq mi (312,685 sq km) Population (2009 est.): 38,482,919 (growth
rate: 0.0%); birth rate: 10.0/1000; infant mortality rate: 6.8/1000;
life expectancy: 75.6; density per sq mi: 328
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Warsaw, 2,201,900 (metro. area), 1,607,600 (city
proper) Other large cities: Lodz,
778,200; Krakow, 733,100; Wroclaw, 632,200; Poznan, 581,200; Gdansk,
456,700; Szczecin, 415,700 Monetary
unit: Zloty More Facts & Figures |
GeographyPoland, a country the size of New Mexico, is in north-central Europe.
Most of the country is a plain with no natural boundaries except the
Carpathian Mountains in the south and the Oder and Neisse rivers in the
west. Other major rivers, which are important to commerce, are the
Vistula, Warta, and Bug.
GovernmentDemocratic republic.
HistoryGreat (north) Poland was founded in 966 by Mieszko I, who belonged to
the Piast dynasty. The tribes of southern Poland then formed Little
Poland. In 1047, both Great Poland and Little Poland united under the rule
of Casimir I the Restorer. Poland merged with Lithuania by royal marriage
in 1386. The Polish-Lithuanian state reached the peak of its power between
the 14th and 16th centuries, scoring military successes against the
(Germanic) Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Russians, and the Ottoman
Turks.
Lack of a strong monarchy enabled Russia, Prussia, and Austria to carry
out a first partition of the country in 1772, a second in 1792, and a
third in 1795. For more than a century thereafter, there was no Polish
state, just Austrian, Prussian, and Russian sectors, but the Poles never
ceased their efforts to regain their independence. The Polish people
revolted against foreign dominance throughout the 19th century. Poland was
formally reconstituted in Nov. 1918, with Marshal Josef Pilsudski as chief
of state. In 1919, Ignace Paderewski, the famous pianist and patriot,
became the first prime minister. In 1926, Pilsudski seized complete power
in a coup and ruled dictatorially until his death on May 12, 1935.
Despite a ten-year nonaggression pact signed in 1934, Hitler attacked
Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Soviet troops invaded from the east on Sept. 17,
and on Sept. 28, a German-Soviet agreement divided Poland between the USSR
and Germany. Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz formed a government-in-exile in France,
which moved to London after France's defeat in 1940. All of Poland was
occupied by Germany after the Nazi attack on the USSR in June 1941. Nazi
Germany's occupation policy in Poland was designed to eradicate Polish
culture through mass executions and to exterminate the country's large
Jewish minority.
The Polish government-in-exile was replaced with the
Communist-dominated Polish Committee of National Liberation by the Soviet
Union in 1944. Moving to Lublin after that city's liberation, it
proclaimed itself the Provisional Government of Poland. Some former
members of the Polish government in London joined with the Lublin
government to form the Polish Government of National Unity, which Britain
and the U.S. recognized. On Aug. 2, 1945, in Berlin, President Harry S.
Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Prime Minister Clement Attlee of Britain
established a new de facto western frontier for Poland along the Oder and
Neisse rivers. (The border was finally agreed to by West Germany in a
nonaggression pact signed on Dec. 7, 1970.) On Aug. 16, 1945, the USSR and
Poland signed a treaty delimiting the Soviet-Polish border. Under these
agreements, Poland was shifted westward. In the east, it lost 69,860 sq mi
(180,934 sq km); in the west, it gained (subject to final peace conference
approval) 38,986 sq mi (100,973 sq km).
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