Poland

I

Introduction

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland (in Polish, Rzeczpospolita Polska), country in central Europe, 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 area of the country is 312,684 sq km (120,728 sq mi).

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Poland was one of the major European powers under the Jagiełłon dynasty. With the end of the dynasty 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. It was partitioned for a fourth time in 1939 by Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

After World War II, Polish territory suffered a net loss of about 76,000 sq km (29,344 sq mi), as the land ceded to the USSR in the east was nearly double that acquired from Germany in the west. A Communist-dominated government ruled Poland from 1947 to 1989.

The name Polska (Poland), first applied in the early 11th century, comes from an ancient Slavic people known as the Polanie (field or plains dwellers), who settled in the lowlands between the rivers Oder (Odra) and Vistula (Wisła) in the early Middle Ages.

II

Land and Resources

Poland is a predominantly lowland country situated, for the most part, in the North European Plain. 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 (575 ft) above sea level, as compared with the overall European average of some 290 m (950 ft), but elevations reach as high as 2,499 m (8,199 ft), atop Mount Rysy in the High Tatry Range in the south, and as low as 1.8 m (almost 6 ft) below sea level in the Wisła delta in the north. Poland is divided into a number of distinct parallel physiographical 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. A narrow coastal lowland, about 40 to 100 km (25 to 60 mi) wide, runs nearly the entire length of the Baltic Sea. The coastline, 694 km (431 mi) long, is remarkably smooth and regular, the major exceptions being the Pomeranian Bay in the west and the Gulf of Gdańsk (Danzig) in the east. A few good natural harbours are located along the Baltic.

The southern third of Poland consists of a number of well-marked regions, comprising upland areas of various kinds and adjacent or intervening lowlands. A narrow belt of mountains occurs in the extreme south and south-west. The Western Carpathian mountain system, which includes the High Tatry Range and the Beskids, contains the highest elevations in the country. In the south-west, the Sudety Mountains reach a maximum elevation of 1,602 m (5,256 ft) in Poland. North of the mountains are a zone of foothills, the Silesian Plain, and the Little Polish Upland.

A

Rivers and Lakes

Almost all of Poland is drained north into the Baltic Sea by way of the Wisła and Oder river systems. The remainder is mostly drained by other rivers flowing into the Baltic. Poland has about 9,300 lakes with an area of 1 hectare (2.5 acres) or more. Lakes are concentrated in the Baltic Heights and Coastal Plain regions. Two lakes, Śniardwy (Spirding) and Mamry (Mauer), exceed 100 sq km (39 sq mi) in size. Poland has some 120 artificial reservoirs, which are situated mainly in the Baltic Heights and in the southern mountains. Many of these water resources, however, are severely polluted. The rivers Wisła, Bóbr, Nida, Wisłok, and Bug, as well as the Baltic Sea, are among the major systems suffering from years of untreated discharge of industrial and household waste. Efforts are currently being made to improve filtration and treatment of wastes, but about half of Polish factories and about 40 per cent of cities do not have treatment or filtration systems.

B

Climate

Poland’s climate has features of both the moderate climate of Western Europe and the more severe continental climate of Eastern Europe. The climate of the western part may be classified as marine west coast, and the eastern part as humid continental with cool summers. Weather conditions are highly variable, particularly in the winter.

In January, mean temperatures range from -1° C (30.2° F) in the west to -5° C (23° F) in the southern mountains. In summer, average temperatures decrease in a north-western direction, from about 20° C (68° F) in the south-east to about 17° C (63° F) near the Baltic. During the year, the warmest temperatures may exceed 40° C (104° F), and the lowest may drop below -42° C (-43.6° F).

Average annual precipitation in Poland as a whole amounts to only some 610 mm (24 in), but it ranges from about 1,195 to 1,500 mm (47 to 59 in) in the mountains to between 450 and 600 mm (18 to 24 in) in the lowlands. Summer precipitation is about double winter precipitation.