Wikipedia

country in Central Europe
This article is about the country. For early uses, see Poland ( disambiguation ) “ poland ” redirects here. For the dance, see Polska ( dance ) “ Rzeczpospolita Polska ” redirects here. For other uses, see Rzeczpospolita ( disambiguation )

Coordinates :
Poland, [ c ] formally the Republic of Poland, [ vitamin d ] is a area located in Central Europe. [ 15 ] It is divided into 16 administrative provinces, covering an sphere of 312,696 km2 ( 120,733 sq nautical mile ), and has a largely moderate seasonal worker climate. [ 9 ] Poland has a population of about 38.5 million people, and is the fifth-most populous penis state of the European Union. [ 9 ] Warsaw is the nation ‘s das kapital and largest city. other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Poland ‘s territory extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia ( Kaliningrad Oblast ) to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the confederacy, and Germany to the west. [ 16 ] The history of human activity on polish dirt spans thousands of years. Throughout the deep ancientness period it became extensively divers, with assorted cultures and tribes settling on the huge central european Plain. however, it was the westerly Polans who dominated the area and gave Poland its name. The institution of polish statehood can be traced to 966, when the hedonist ruler of a kingdom coextensive with the territory of contemporary Poland embraced Christianity and converted to Catholicism. [ 17 ] The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025 and in 1569 cemented its longstanding political association with Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This coupling formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest ( over one million square kilometres or 400,000 feather miles in area ) and most populous nations of 16th and seventeenth century Europe, with a uniquely liberal political system which adopted Europe ‘s first modern united states constitution, the Constitution of 3 May 1791. [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] With the end of the golden polish Golden Age, the country was partitioned by neighbouring states at the end of the eighteenth century, and regained independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. After a series of territorial conflicts, the newfangled multiethnic Poland restored its stead as a key player in european politics. In September 1939, World War II began with the invasion of Poland by Germany, followed by the Soviets invading Poland in accord with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. approximately six million polish citizens, including three million of the country ‘s Jews, perished during the course of the war. [ 21 ] [ 22 ] As a member of the easterly Bloc, the polish People ‘s Republic proclaimed immediately was a headman signer of the Warsaw Treaty amidst ball-shaped Cold War tensions. In the wake island of the 1989 events, notably through the egress and contributions of the Solidarity movement, the communist government was dissolved and Poland re-established itself as a democratic republic. Poland is a break grocery store, [ 23 ] and a middle ability ; it has the sixth largest economy in the European Union by nominal GDP and the fifth largest by GDP ( PPP ). [ 24 ] It provides identical high standards of living, guard and economic freedom, [ 25 ] [ 26 ] [ 27 ] equally well as free university education and a universal joint health wish system. [ 28 ] [ 29 ] The area has 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 15 of which are cultural. [ 30 ] Poland is a extremity state of the Schengen Area, European Union, european Economic Area, the United Nations, NATO, the OECD, the Three Seas Initiative and the Visegrád Group .

etymology

The state ‘s native name Polska is derived from the Lechitic tribe of western Polans, who inhabited the Warta river river basin of contemporary Greater Poland area starting in the mid-6th hundred. [ 31 ] The tribe ‘s diagnose itself stems from the Proto-Indo european *pleh₂- ( flatland ) and the Proto-Slavic parole pole ( field ). [ 31 ] [ 32 ] The etymology eludes to the topography of the area and the flat landscape of Greater Poland. [ 33 ] The English list Poland was formed in the 1560s from Middle High german Pole(n) and the suffix land, denoting a people or nation. [ 34 ] [ 35 ] Prior to its borrowing, the Latin phase Polonia was widely used throughout medieval Europe. [ 36 ] In some languages, such as hungarian, lithuanian, iranian and Old Norse, the area ‘s exonym stems from Lechia, which derives from Lech, a fabled ruler of the polish tribes ( Lechites ), [ 37 ] or from the Lendians who dwelled on the south-easternmost edge of contemporary Lesser Poland region. [ 31 ] The origin of the tribe ‘s list lies in the Old Polish parole lęda ( complain ), which is a cognate of the german “ hyrax Land ”, spanish “ landa ” and English “ domain ”. [ 38 ] Initially, both names Lechia and Polonia were used interchangeably when referring to Poland by chroniclers during the Early and High Middle Ages. [ 39 ] [ 40 ]

history

prehistory and protohistory

The first Stone Age archaic humans and Homo erectus species settled what was to become Poland approximately 500,000 years ago, though the ensuing hostile climate prevented early on humans from founding more permanent wave encampments. [ 41 ] There is evidence that sporadic groups of gatherer-hunter Neanderthals penetrated southerly polish regions during the Eemian interglacial period ( 128,000–115,000 BCE ) and in the subsequent millennium. [ 42 ] The arrival of Homo sapiens and anatomically advanced humans coincided with the climatic discontinuity at the end of the last arctic Period ( 10,000 BC ), when Poland became habitable. [ 43 ] Neolithic excavations indicated broad-ranging development in that era ; the earliest attest of european cheesemaking ( 5500 BC ) was discovered in polish Kuyavia, [ 44 ] and the Bronocice pot is incised with the earliest know depiction of what may be a wheel fomite ( 3400 BC ). [ 45 ] The early Bronze Age in Poland began around 2400 BC, while the Iron Age commenced in approximately 750 BC. [ 46 ] During this time, the sorbian culture, spanning both the Bronze and Iron Ages, became particularly big. The most significant archaeological discover from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified village ( now reconstructed as an alfresco museum ), dating from the sorbian polish of the deep Bronze Age, around 748 BC. [ 47 ] Throughout ancientness ( 400 BC–500 AD ), many distinct ancient ethnic groups populated the district of contemporary Poland, notably Celtic, Scythian, Germanic, Sarmatian, Slavic and Baltic tribes. [ 48 ] Furthermore, archaeological findings confirmed the presence of the Roman Legions. [ 49 ] These were most likely expeditionary missions sent out to protect amber craft along the Amber Road. The polish tribes emerged in the course of the Migration Period in the mid-6th century. [ 50 ] These were predominantly West Slavic and Lechitic in origin, but besides comprised assimilated ethnic groups who inhabited the sphere for thousands of years. [ 51 ] The earlier tribal communities may have been associated with the ancient Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures. [ 52 ] [ 53 ]

Piast dynasty

Poland began to form into a recognizable unitary and territorial entity around the center of the tenth hundred under the Piast dynasty. Poland ‘s first historically documented ruler, Mieszko I, accepted western Christianity as the rightful religion under the auspices of the Latin church service with the Baptism of Poland in 966 AD. [ 54 ] In 1000, Boleslaus I the Brave, continuing the policy of his father Mieszko, held a diplomatic sexual intercourse and established the city of Gniezno followed by dioceses in Kraków, Kołobrzeg, and Wrocław. [ 55 ] Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, assented to the creation of bishoprics and bestowed upon Boleslaus royal regalia and a replica of the Holy Lance, which were used for his coronation as the first King of Poland in circa 1025. [ 56 ] He expanded the kingdom well by seizing parts of german Lusatia, Czech Moravia, Upper Hungary and the eastern provinces. [ 57 ] however, the transition from paganism proved unmanageable and was not an instantaneous serve for the rest of the population as apparent from the pagan reaction of the 1030s. [ 58 ] His son, Mieszko II Lambert, lost the entitle of king and fled amidst the struggles for power in 1031, but was reinstated as duke in 1032. [ 59 ] The unrest led to the remove of the capital to Kraków in 1038 by Casimir I the Restorer. [ 60 ]
Earliest known contemporary depiction of a polish sovereign, King Mieszko II Lambert of Poland, who ruled between 1025 and 1031 In 1076, Boleslaus II briefly re-instituted the agency of king, but was banished in 1079 for murdering his opponent Bishop Stanislaus, who was then proclaimed a martyr and patron ideal. [ 61 ] In 1109, Boleslaus III Wrymouth defeated the King of Germany Henry V at the Battle of Hundsfeld, frankincense stopping the german incursion into Poland. The clang was documented by Gallus Anonymus in Gesta principum Polonorum, the oldest polish history. [ 62 ] In 1138, Poland fragmented into several smaller principalities when Boleslaus divided his lands among his sons. [ 63 ] These comprised the Duchies of Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, Silesia, Masovia and Sandomierz, with Pomerania ruled by vassals. The division allowed each state to develop its own cultural identity and wealth, but made the area more vulnerable militarily. [ 64 ] In 1226, Konrad I of Masovia, one of the regional dukes, invited the Teutonic Knights to aid in combating the Baltic Prussian pagans ; a decision that led to centuries of war with the Knights. [ 65 ] In the mid-13th century, the Silesian branch of the Piast dynasty ( Henry I the Bearded and Henry II the Pious ) closely succeeded in uniting the dukedoms. [ 66 ] Their efforts were hindered by the Mongols, who pillaged the southerly and eastern regions of Poland, and defeated the compound polish forces at the Battle of Legnica ( 1241 ) where Henry II was killed. [ 67 ] The Mongols raided doubly more in the second one-half of the hundred, but were defeated and driven out by the Poles. In 1264, the Statute of Kalisz, or the General Charter of Jewish Liberties, introduced unprecedented rights for the polish Jews, leading to a about autonomous “ nation within a nation ”. [ 68 ] Cities began to grow during this period and new settlements were granted town privileges under Magdeburg Law, which besides favoured german migration into Poland. [ 69 ]
Great. He built extensively during his reign, and reformed the Polish army along with the country’s legal code, 1333–70.Casimir III the Great is the only Polish king to receive the title of. He built extensively during his reign, and reformed the Polish army along with the country’s legal code, 1333–70. In 1320, after an earlier abortive attempt at fusion by Premislaus II, Ladislaus the Short consolidated his power, took the throne and became the first king of a reunify Poland. [ 70 ] He was the first autonomous crowned at Wawel Cathedral with Szczerbiec ( “ Jagged Sword ” ), which symbolised the permanent wave restoration of kingship. [ 71 ] His son, Casimir III ( reigned 1333–1370 ), gained wide recognition for improving the nation ‘s infrastructure, reforming the army and strengthening statesmanship. [ 72 ] [ 73 ] He besides extended royal protection to Jews, and encouraged them to settle in Poland. [ 72 ] [ 74 ] Casimir hoped to build a class of educated people, specially lawyers, who could codify the country ‘s laws and administer the courts and offices. His efforts were ultimately rewarded when Pope Urban V granted him license to open the University of Kraków in 1364, one of the oldest institutions of higher memorize in Europe. [ 75 ] Under his authority, Poland was transformed into a major european exponent. [ 76 ] The Black Death, a blight that ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351, did not importantly affect Poland, and the country was spared from a major outbreak of the disease. [ 77 ] [ 78 ] The reason for this was the decision of Casimir to quarantine the state ‘s borders. furthermore, the concept of Golden Liberty began to develop under his rule – in return for military support, the king made a series of concessions to the nobility and establishing their legal status as superior to that of the town. [ 79 ] When Casimir the Great died in 1370, leaving no legitimate male successor, the Piast dynasty came to an end. [ 80 ] In November 1370, Casimir ‘s nephew and closest male relative, Louis of Anjou, was crowned baron at Wawel. [ 81 ] He ruled Poland, Hungary and Croatia in a personal union. Like his uncle, Louis I had no sons and persuaded his subjects to acknowledge the right of his daughters to succeed him in both Poland and Hungary by granting privileges. [ 82 ] Upon his death and a biennial interregnum, his younger daughter Hedwig ( in Poland known as Jadwiga ) became the first gear female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland in 1384. [ 81 ] however, she was stylised as “ king ” during her reign because the polish law had no provision for a queen regnant, but did not specify that the sovereign had to be male. [ 83 ] [ 84 ]

Jagiellonian dynasty

In 1385, Jadwiga was expected to marry William Habsburg of Austria, but the noble lords were apprehensive about the match think that it would not secure national interests against the Luxembourgs, who controlled Bohemia and Brandenburg. [ 85 ] She finally wedded the lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila ( Władysław II Jagiełło ), thus forming the Jagiellonian dynasty ( 1386–1572 ) and the Polish–Lithuanian union that spanned the former Middle Ages and early Modern Era. The partnership brought the huge multiethnic lithuanian territories into Poland ‘s celestial sphere of influence and proved beneficial for the Poles and Lithuanians, who coexisted in one of the largest european political entities of the time. [ 86 ] In the Baltic Sea region, the conflict of Poland and Lithuania with the Teutonic Knights continued and culminated at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, where a unite Polish-Lithuanian army inflicted a decisive victory against them. [ 87 ] In 1466, after the Thirteen Years ‘ War, King Casimir IV Jagiellon gave royal consent to the Peace of Thorn, which created the future Duchy of Prussia under Polish suzerainty. [ 88 ] The Jagiellonian dynasty at one point besides established dynastic control over the kingdoms of Bohemia ( 1471 onwards ) and Hungary. [ 89 ] [ 90 ] In the south, Poland confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars, and in the east helped Lithuania fight Russia. [ 91 ] Poland was developing as a feudal department of state, with a predominantly agrarian economy and an increasingly knock-down land nobility. In 1493, John I Albert sanctioned the creation of a bicameral fantan composed of a lower house, the Sejm, and an upper house, the Senate. [ 92 ] The Nihil novi act adopted by the polish General Sejm in 1505, transferred most of the legislative might from the sovereign to the parliament, an event which marked the begin of the period known as “ Golden Liberty ”, when the state was ruled by the “ free and equal ” polish nobility. [ 93 ]
The Protestant Reformation movements made deep inroads into polish Christianity, which resulted in the institution of policies promoting religious tolerance, unique in Europe at that time. [ 94 ] This allowance allowed the nation to avoid most of the religious tumult that spread over Europe during the sixteenth century. [ 94 ] In Poland, Nontrinitarian Christianity became the doctrine of the alleged polish Brethren, who separated from their calvinist denomination and became the co-founders of ball-shaped Unitarianism. [ 95 ] The european Renaissance evoked under kings Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus a sense of urgency in the need to promote a cultural awaken. [ 96 ] During this time period polish culture and the nation ‘s economy flourished ; changes and contributions to architecture, cuisine, language and customs were made at the behest of Sigismund the Old ‘s wife, the Italian-born Bona Sforza, daughter of the Duke of Milan. [ 97 ] In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus, an astronomer from Toruń, published his epochal shape De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ( On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres ) and thereby became the inaugural advocate of a predictive numerical model confirming the heliocentric hypothesis, which became the accept basic model for the practice of modern astronomy. [ 98 ]

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Warsaw Confederation extended religious freedoms and tolerance in the Commonwealth, and was the first of its kind act in Europe, 28 January 1573. The 1569 Union of Lublin established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a more closely unite federal state with an elective monarchy, but which was governed largely by the nobility. [ 99 ] The Warsaw Confederation ( 1573 ) guaranteed religious exemption for the polish nobles (szlachta) and townsfolk (mieszczanie). [ 100 ] however, the peasants (chłopi) were inactive subject to severe limitations imposed on them by the nobility, and confined to individual folwark farmsteads. [ 68 ] The institution of the Commonwealth coincided with a period of constancy and prosperity, with the union thereafter becoming a european power and a major cultural entity, occupying approximately 1 million km2 ( 390,000 sq michigan ) after the Truce of Deulino. [ 101 ] It was the largest state in Europe at the fourth dimension. [ 102 ] Poland was the dominant partner and acted as an agent for the dissemination of western culture, Catholicism and polish traditions through Polonization into areas of North – Eastern Europe which it controlled following the union. Certain factions of lithuanian nobility were apprehensive about the fusion, fearing that it would lead to the loss of Lithuania ‘s cultural identity. [ 103 ] In 1573, Henry de Valois, son of Henry II of France and Catherine de ‘ Medici, was proclaimed King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in the inaugural election. [ 104 ] He hesitantly instituted the Henrician Articles which determined the principles of royal government, thus foster limiting the might of a sovereign. [ 105 ] Henry ‘s reign was brief ; he was dethroned in 1575 after fleeing to succeed his brother, Charles IX, in France. [ 105 ] His successor, Stephen Báthory from Transylvania, proved to be a capable military commander. Báthory ‘s engagement aboard Sweden and successful campaign in the livonian War against Ivan the Terrible granted Poland more territories in the Baltic states. [ 106 ]
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at its greatest extent after the Truce of Deulino. During the first half of the seventeenth hundred, the Commonwealth covered an area of about 1,000,000 square kilometres ( 390,000 sq nautical mile ). In 1592, Sigismund III of Poland succeeded his father, John Vasa, in Sweden. [ 107 ] Under his authority, the Commonwealth and Sweden temporarily united in what was known as the Polish-Swedish union. Sigismund was a talented number, but a Catholic fanatic and a tyrant who hoped to reintroduce absolutism. [ 108 ] He was a impregnable preach of Counter-Reformation, funded the Jesuits, and furtively supported repressions against the Protestants and other religious minorities. In 1599, he was deposed in Sweden by his protestant uncle Charles, which ended the union. [ 109 ] Sigismund ‘s long reign in Poland was described as the Silver Age due to his investments and trade over artists, scholars and architects. [ 110 ] In politics, he undermined fantan and levy expansionist policies. [ 111 ] Taking advantage of a civil war in neighbouring Russia, Sigismund invaded the country in 1609. [ 112 ] In 1610, the polish army and winged hussar units under the command of Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski seized Moscow after defeating the Russians at the Battle of Klushino. [ 112 ] The embarrassed Vasili IV of Russia was caged and sent to Poland where he paid tribute in Warsaw and was later murdered in captivity. [ 113 ] The Poles were finally driven out of ruin Moscow after two years by a local originate. Sigismund besides countered the Ottoman Empire in the southeast ; at Khotyn in 1621 the Commonwealth forces under Jan Karol Chodkiewicz achieved a decisive victory against the Turks. [ 114 ] Their get the better of and subsequent Janissary disgust marked the fall of Sultan Osman II. [ 115 ] Sigismund ‘s liberal son, Ladislaus IV Vasa, successfully defended Poland ‘s territorial possessions, but his death ended the centuries-long era of relative stability. [ 116 ]
From the middle of the seventeenth hundred, the nobles ‘ majority rule, suffering from home disorder, gradually declined, thereby leaving the once knock-down Commonwealth vulnerable. [ 117 ] The polish and catholic domination of contemporary Ukraine resulted in the 1648 Khmelnytsky Uprising, which engulfed much of the eastern parts of the nation and led to the creation of a ukrainian Cossack state allied with Russia. [ 118 ] This was followed by the swedish Deluge during the Second Northern War, which marched through the polish heartlands and decimated the state ‘s population and infrastructure. [ 119 ] Finding itself subjected to about ceaseless war, the Commonwealth fell into decay, further weakened when Prussia declared independence in 1657. [ 119 ] The government became ineffective as a solution of internal conflicts, rebellious confederations and corrupted legislative processes. [ 119 ] however, under John III Sobieski the Commonwealth ‘s military art was re-established, and in 1683 polish forces played a major function in the Battle of Vienna against the Ottoman Army. [ 120 ] The lesser nobility fell under the control of magnates, and this, compounded with two relatively weak kings of the Saxon Wettin dynasty, Augustus II and Augustus III, american samoa well as the originate of neighbouring countries after the Great Northern War merely served to worsen the Commonwealth ‘s pledge. [ 121 ] Despite this, the personal union of Poland and Saxony gave rise to the Commonwealth ‘s first reform drift, and laid the foundations for the polish Enlightenment. [ 122 ] The cardinal internal reforms brought a a lot improved economy, meaning population emergence and far-reaching build up in the areas of education, intellectual life, art, and specially toward the end of the period, development of the social and political system. The most populous capital city of Warsaw replaced Gdańsk ( Danzig ) as the leading center of department of commerce, and the function of the more booming urban population increased. [ 123 ]

Partitions

The royal election of 1764 resulted in the aggrandizement of Stanislaus II Augustus ( a polish aristocrat from the Poniatowski syndicate, connected to the Familia cabal of magnates ) to the monarchy. [ 124 ] His campaigning was extensively funded by his patron and erstwhile fan, Empress Catherine II of Russia. [ 125 ] The new king spent much of his predominate steer between his desire to implement necessity reforms to save the state from inner disorder, and the necessity to remain in a political relationship and at peace with surrounding states. [ 126 ] This led to the formation of the 1768 Bar Confederation, a rebellion of nobles directed against the polish king and all external influence, which ineptly aimed to preserve Poland ‘s reign and privileges held by the nobility. [ 127 ] The fail attempts at reform deoxyadenosine monophosphate well as the domestic tumult caused by the Confederation proved the country ‘s weakness and provoked its neighbours to intervene. [ 128 ] In 1772 the First Partition of the Commonwealth by Prussia, Russia and Austria took place ; an work which the Partition Sejm, under considerable duress, finally “ ratified ” as a fait accompli. [ 129 ] Disregarding the territorial losses, in 1773 the king established a plan of the most necessary reforms, in which the Commission of National Education, the first politics education authority in Europe, was inaugurated. [ 130 ] Corporal punishment of schoolchildren was formally prohibited in 1783. Poniatowski was the head figure of the polish Enlightenment, encouraged the development of industries and embraced “ republican ” neoclassic architecture. [ 131 ] For his contributions to the arts and sciences he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society, where he became the first base royal member outside British royalty. [ 132 ]
The Great Sejm ( 1788–1792 ) convened by Stanislaus Augustus successfully adopted in 1791 the 3 May Constitution, the first set of modern sovereign national laws in Europe. [ 133 ] however, this document, accused by detractors of harbouring revolutionary sympathies, generated strong confrontation from the Commonwealth ‘s nobility and conservatives angstrom well as from Catherine, who, determined to prevent the rebirth of a hard Commonwealth put about planning the final dismemberment of the Polish-Lithuanian state. Russia was aided in achieving its goal when the Targowica Confederation, an organization of polish nobles, appealed to the Empress for avail. In May 1792, russian forces crossed the Commonwealth ‘s easterly frontier, frankincense beginning the Polish–Russian War. [ 134 ] The defensive war fought by the Poles ended prematurely when the King, convinced of the futility of electric resistance, capitulated and joined the Targowica Confederation, hoping to save the country. The Confederation then took over the government. Russia and Prussia, fearing the reemergence of a polish state, understand, that despite the stream influence they however can not control the country, arranged for, and in 1793 executed, the Second Partition of the Commonwealth, which left the nation deprived of thus much territory that it was practically incapable of mugwump universe. In 1795, following the fail Kościuszko Uprising, the Commonwealth was partitioned one last clock time by all three of its more mighty neighbours, and with this, efficaciously ceased to exist. [ 135 ] The 18-century british statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke summed up the partitions : “ No wise or honest man can approve of that partition, or can contemplate it without prognosticating big mischief from it to all countries at some future time ”. [ 136 ]

era of insurrections

Poles rebelled several times against the partitioners, particularly near the end of the eighteenth century and the begin of the nineteenth hundred. An unsuccessful undertake at defending Poland ‘s sovereignty took station in 1794 during the Kościuszko Uprising, where a popular and signalize general Tadeusz Kościuszko, who had respective years earlier served under Washington in the american Revolutionary War, led polish insurrectionists. Despite the victory at the Battle of Racławice, his ultimate frustration ended Poland ‘s independent being for 123 years. [ 138 ] In 1807, Napoleon I of France temporarily recreated a polish state as the satellite Duchy of Warsaw, after a successful 1806 uprising against prussian rule. In accordance with the Treaty of Tilsit, the duchy was ruled by his ally, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. The polish troops and generals aided Napoleon throughout the Napoleonic Wars, particularly those under Józef Poniatowski, who became the only extraneous Marshal of the french Empire shortly before his death at the Battle of Leipzig. [ 139 ] In the consequence of Napoleon ‘s exile, Poland was again burst between the triumphant powers at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. [ 140 ] The eastern part was ruled by the russian czar as Congress Poland, which temporarily held a big united states constitution. The Prussian-controlled territory of western Poland came under increased Germanization. Thus, in the nineteenth century, only Habsburg-ruled austrian Poland and the Free City of Kraków in the south, allowed free polish culture to flourish .
In 1830, the November Uprising began in Warsaw when young non-commissioned officers at the Officer Cadet School rebelled. [ 141 ] Although the numerically smaller polish forces successfully defeated several russian armies, they were left unsupported by France and the newborn United States. With Prussia and Austria measuredly prohibiting the import of military supplies through their territories, the Poles accepted that the rebellion was doomed to failure. After the frustration, the semi-independent Congress Poland lost its fundamental law, united states army and legislative assembly, and its autonomy was abolished. [ 142 ] During the european spring of Nations, Poles took up arms in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1848 to resist the Prussians. initially, the arise manifested itself in the form of civil disobedience but finally turned into an armed fight when the prussian military was sent in to pacify the region. subsequently, the originate was suppressed and the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen, created from the prussian division of Poland, was incorporated into Prussia, and in 1871 into the german Empire. [ 143 ] In 1863, a new polish rebellion against Russia began. The January Uprising started out as a spontaneous protest by young Poles against conscription into the Imperial russian Army. however, the insurrectionists, despite being joined by high-level Polish–Lithuanian officers and numerous politicians, were hush badly outnumber and lacking in foreign support. They were forced to resort to guerrilla war tactics and failed to win any major military victories. consequently, the Poles resorted to fostering economic and cultural self-improvement. Congress Poland was quickly industrialize towards the goal of the nineteenth century, and successively transformed into the Empire ‘s wealthiest and most develop subject. [ 144 ] [ 145 ]

second Polish Republic

Following World War I all the Allies agreed on the reconstitution of Poland that United States President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed in Point 13 of his fourteen Points. A total of 2 million polish troops fought with the armies of the three occupying powers, and 450,000 died. concisely after the armistice with Germany in November 1918, Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic ( II Rzeczpospolita Polska ). It reaffirmed its independence after a series of military conflicts, the most noteworthy being the Polish–Soviet War ( 1919–21 ) when Poland inflicted a crushing kill on the bolshevik Army at the Battle of Warsaw, an consequence which is considered to have halted the advance of Communism into Europe and forced Vladimir Lenin to rethink his objective of achieving ball-shaped socialism. The event is frequently referred to as the “ Miracle at the Vistula ”. [ 146 ] During this menstruation, Poland successfully managed to fuse the territories of the three early partitioning powers into a cohesive nation country. Railways were restructured to direct dealings towards Warsaw alternatively of the former imperial capitals, a new net of national roads was gradually built up and a major seaport, Gdynia, was opened on the Baltic Coast, so as to allow polish exports and imports to bypass the politically load Free City of Danzig. besides, the polish government embarked on the creation of the Central Industrial Region ( Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy ). The project ‘s goal was to create an industrial kernel in the middle of the state that included steel mills, might plants and factories .
The inter-war period heralded in a fresh earned run average of polish politics. Whilst polish political activists had faced dense censoring in the decades up until the First World War, the country now found itself trying to establish a new political tradition. For this reason, many exiled polish activists, such as Ignacy Paderewski ( who would subsequently become prime minister ) returned home to help ; a meaning number of them then went on to take key positions in the newly formed political and governmental structures. Tragedy struck in 1922 when Gabriel Narutowicz, inauguration holder of the presidency, was assassinated at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw by a cougar and rightist nationalist Eligiusz Niewiadomski. [ 147 ] In 1926, a May coup, led by the hero of the polish independence campaign Marshal Józef Piłsudski, turned rule of the Second Polish Republic over to the nonpartisan Sanacja ( Healing ) motion in an feat to prevent root political organizations on both the left and the right from destabilizing the country. [ einsteinium ] The movement functioned with relative constancy until Piłsudski ‘s death in 1935. Following Marshal Piłsudski ‘s death, Sanation split into several competing factions. [ 151 ] By the former 1930s, ascribable to increased threats posed by political extremism inside the state, the polish politics became increasingly heavy-handed, banning a count of radical organizations, including communist and ultra-nationalist political parties, which threatened the constancy of the country. [ 152 ]

World War II

World War II began with the national socialist german invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, followed by the soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September. On 28 September 1939, Warsaw fell. As agreed in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was split into two zones, one occupied by Nazi Germany, the other by the Soviet Union. In 1939–41, the Soviets deported hundreds of thousands of Poles. The soviet NKVD executed thousands of polish prisoners of war ( bury alia Katyn slaughter ) ahead of the Operation Barbarossa. [ 153 ] german planners had in November 1939 called for “ the complete destruction of all Poles ” and their destiny as outlined in the genocidal Generalplan Ost. [ 154 ] polish intelligence operatives proved extremely valuable to the Allies, providing much of the intelligence from Europe and beyond, [ 155 ] and polish code breakers were responsible for cracking the Enigma calculate. [ fluorine ] Poland made the fourth-largest troop contribution in Europe [ gigabyte ] and its troops served both the polish Government in Exile in the west and soviet leadership in the east. polish troops played an important function in the Normandy, Italian and north african Campaigns and are peculiarly remembered for the Battle of Monte Cassino. [ 160 ] [ 161 ] In the east, the Soviet-backed polish 1st Army distinguished itself in the battles for Warsaw and Berlin. [ 162 ]
The wartime resistance movement, and the Armia Krajowa ( Home Army ), fought against german occupation. It was one of the three largest resistance movements of the stallion war, [ h ] and encompassed a compass of clandestine activities, which functioned as an underground department of state complete with degree-awarding universities and a court system. [ 169 ] The resistance was loyal to the expatriate politics and generally resented the theme of a communist Poland ; for this reason, in the summer of 1944 it initiated Operation Tempest, of which the Warsaw Uprising that begun on 1 August 1944 is the best know mathematical process. [ 162 ] [ 170 ] national socialist german forces under orders from Adolf Hitler set up six german extinction camps in invade Poland, including Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz. The Germans transported millions of Jews from across occupied Europe to be murdered in those camps. [ 171 ] [ 172 ]
all in all, 3 million polish Jews [ 173 ] [ 174 ] – approximately 90 % of Poland ‘s pre-war Jewry – and between 1.8 and 2.8 million cultural Poles [ 175 ] [ 176 ] [ 177 ] were killed during the german occupation of Poland, including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the polish intelligentsia – academics, doctors, lawyers, nobility and priesthood. During the Warsaw Uprising alone, over 150,000 polish civilians were killed, most were murdered by the Germans during the Wola and Ochota massacres. [ 178 ] [ 179 ] Around 150,000 polish civilians were killed by Soviets between 1939 and 1941 during the Soviet Union ‘s occupation of easterly Poland ( Kresy ), and another estimated 100,000 Poles were murdered by the ukrainian Insurgent Army ( UPA ) between 1943 and 1944 in what became known as the Wołyń Massacres. [ 180 ] [ 181 ] Of all the countries in the war, Poland lost the highest percentage of its citizens : around 6 million perished – more than one-sixth of Poland ‘s pre-war population – half of them polish Jews. [ 22 ] [ 182 ] [ 183 ] About 90 % of deaths were non-military in nature. [ 184 ] In 1945, Poland ‘s borders were shifted westwards. Over two million polish inhabitants of Kresy were expelled along the Curzon Line by Stalin. [ 185 ] The westerly surround became the Oder-Neisse line. As a leave, Poland ‘s territory was reduced by 20 %, or 77,500 square kilometres ( 29,900 sq secret intelligence service ). The lurch forced the migration of millions of other people, most of whom were Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, and Jews. [ 186 ] [ 187 ] [ 188 ]

Post-war communism

At the imperativeness of Joseph Stalin, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a new probationary pro-Communist coalition government in Moscow, which ignored the polish government-in-exile based in London. This military action angered many Poles who considered it a betrayal by the Allies. In 1944, Stalin had made guarantees to Churchill and Roosevelt that he would maintain Poland ‘s sovereignty and allow democratic elections to take place. however, upon achieving victory in 1945, the elections organized by the occupying soviet authorities were falsified and were used to provide a veneer of legitimacy for soviet hegemony over polish affairs. The Soviet Union instituted a new communist government in Poland, analogous to much of the rest of the easterly Bloc. As elsewhere in Communist Europe, the soviet influence over Poland was met with armed resistance from the beginning which continued into the 1950s. Despite widespread objections, the new polish government accepted the soviet annexation of the pre-war eastern regions of Poland [ 189 ] ( in particular the cities of Wilno and Lwów ) and agreed to the permanent wave garrison of Red Army units on Poland ‘s territory. military alliance within the Warsaw Pact throughout the Cold War came about as a direct leave of this change in Poland ‘s political culture. In the european picture, it came to characterize the full-fledged integration of Poland into the brotherhood of communist nations. The raw communist politics took dominance with the adoption of the Small Constitution on 19 February 1947. The polish People ‘s Republic ( Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa ) was formally proclaimed in 1952. In 1956, after the death of Bolesław Bierut, the régime of Władysław Gomułka became temporarily more liberal, freeing many people from prison and expanding some personal freedoms. collectivization in the polish People ‘s Republic failed. A similar situation repeated itself in the 1970s under Edward Gierek, but most of the clock time persecution of anti-communist opposition groups persisted. Despite this, Poland was at the time considered to be one of the least oppressive states of the eastern Bloc. [ 190 ] parturiency tumult in 1980 led to the geological formation of the independent deal union “ Solidarity “ ( “ Solidarność “ ), which over time became a political storm. Despite persecution and imposition of martial law in 1981, it eroded the authority of the polish United Workers ‘ Party and by 1989 had triumphed in Poland ‘s first partially absolve and democratic parliamentary elections since the end of the Second World War. Lech Wałęsa, a Solidarity campaigner, finally won the presidency in 1990. The Solidarity apparent motion heralded the collapse of communist regimes and parties across Europe .

1990s to present

Poland became a member state of the European Union on 1 May 2004. A shock therapy program, initiated by Leszek Balcerowicz in the early 1990s, enabled the country to transform its socialist-style planned economy into a market economy. As with other post-communist countries, Poland suffered impermanent declines in social and economic standards, [ 191 ] but it became the beginning post-communist state to reach its pre-1989 GDP levels, which it achieved by 1995 thanks largely to its booming economy. [ 192 ] Most visibly, there were numerous improvements in human rights, such as exemption of manner of speaking, internet exemption ( no censoring ), civil liberties ( 1st course ) and political rights ( 1st class ), as ranked by Freedom House non-governmental arrangement. In 1991, Poland became a member of the Visegrád Group [ 193 ] and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) alliance in 1999 [ 194 ] along with the Czech Republic and Hungary. Poles then voted to join the European Union in a referendum in June 2003, with Poland becoming a full member on 1 May 2004. [ 195 ]
Poland joined the Schengen Area in 2007, [ 196 ] as a consequence of which, the area ‘s borders with early penis states of the European Union have been dismantled, allowing for full exemption of movement within most of the EU. [ 197 ] In an campaign to strengthen military cooperation with its neighbors, Poland set up the Visegrád Battlegroup with Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, with a sum of 3,000 troops ready for deployment. [ 198 ] besides, in easterly Poland, it formed the LITPOLUKRBRIG battle groups with Lithuania and Ukraine. These battle groups will operate outside of NATO and within the european defense enterprise framework. [ 199 ] On 10 April 2010, the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, along with 89 other high-level polish officials died in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia. The president of the united states ‘s party was on their manner to attend an annual service of memorial for the victims of the Katyń slaughter when the calamity took place. [ 200 ] In 2011, the rule Civic Platform won parliamentary elections. [ 201 ] Poland joined the european Space Agency in 2012, [ 202 ] adenine well as organised the UEFA Euro 2012 ( along with Ukraine ). [ 203 ] In 2013, Poland besides became a member of the Development Assistance Committee. [ 204 ] In 2014, the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, was chosen to be President of the European Council, and resigned as flower minister. [ 205 ] The 2015 and 2019 elections were won by the cautious Law and Justice Party ( PiS ), [ 206 ] [ 207 ] resulting in increased friction between Poland and the EU. [ 208 ] [ 209 ] In December 2017, Mateusz Morawiecki was sworn in as the new Prime Minister, succeeding Beata Szydlo, in office since 2015. They both represented rule jurisprudence and Justice party, led by party president Jarosław Kaczyński. [ 210 ] President Andrzej Duda, supported by Law and Justice party, was narrowly re-elected in the 2020 presidential election. [ 211 ]

geography

Poland covers an area of approximately 312,696 km2 ( 120,733 sq mile ), of which 98.52 % is dry land and 1.48 % is body of water. [ 212 ] Extending across several geographic regions, the area is the 9th-largest by area in Europe and 69th largest in the earth. topographically, Poland is diverse and has access to the ocean, the mountains and open terrain. [ 213 ] Although most of the cardinal parts of the country are compressed, there is an abundance of lakes, rivers, hills, swamps, beaches, islands and forests elsewhere. [ 213 ] In the northwest is the Baltic seashore spanning from the Bay of Pomerania to the Gulf of Gdańsk. The coast is marked by respective spits, coastal lakes ( former bays that have been cut off from the sea ), and dunes. [ 214 ] The largely straight coastline is indented by the Szczecin Lagoon, the Bay of Puck, and the Vistula Lagoon. The central and northern parts of the nation lie within the north european Plain. Rising above these lowlands is a geographic region comprising four cragged districts of moraines and moraine-dammed lakes formed during and after the Pleistocene ice age, notably the pomeranian Lake District, the Greater Polish Lake District, the Kashubian Lake District, and the Masurian Lake District. [ 215 ] The Masurian Lake District is the largest of the four and covers much of north-eastern Poland. The lake districts form a series of moraine belts along the southern land of the Baltic Sea. [ 215 ] South of the Northern European Plain are the regions of Lusatia, Silesia and Masovia, which are marked by broad ice-age river valleys. [ 216 ] The extreme south of Poland is cragged ; it runs from the Sudetes in the west to the Carpathian Mountains in the east. The highest separate of the Carpathian massif is the Tatra Mountain scope, along Poland ‘s southern boundary line. [ 217 ]

geology

The geological social organization of Poland has been shaped by the continental collision of Europe and Africa over the past 60 million years and, more recently, by the Quaternary glaciations of northern Europe. [ 218 ] Both processes shaped the Sudetes and the Carpathian Mountains. The moraine landscape of northern Poland contains soils made up by and large of sand or loam, while the frost long time river valley of the south much contain loess. The polish Jura, the Pieniny, and the western Tatras dwell of limestone, whereas the High Tatras, the Beskids, and the Karkonosze mountain ranges are made up chiefly of granite and basalts. The polish Jura Chain has some of the oldest rock formations on the celibate of Europe. [ 219 ] Poland has over 70 mountains over 2,000 metres ( 6,600 feet ) in elevation, all situated in the Tatras. [ 220 ] Poland ‘s highest target is the north-western acme of Mount Rysy at 2,501 metres ( 8,205 foot ) in elevation. [ 221 ] At its foot lie the mountain lakes of Czarny Staw ( Black Lake ) and Morskie Oko ( Eye of the Sea ), both naturally-made tarns. [ 222 ] other celebrated uplands include the Pieniny and Holy Cross Mountains, the mesa Mountains noted for their strange rock candy formations, the Bieszczady in the far southeast of the area in which the highest extremum is Tarnica at 1,346 metres ( 4,416 foot ), [ 223 ] and the Gorce Mountains whose highest bespeak is Turbacz at 1,310 metres ( 4,298 foot ). [ 224 ] The highest point of the Sudeten massif is Mount Śnieżka ( 1,603.3 metres ( 5,260 foot ) ), shared with the Czech Republic. [ 225 ]
The lowest distributor point in Poland – at 1.8 metres ( 5.9 foot ) below ocean level – is at Raczki Elbląskie, near Elbląg in the Vistula Delta. [ 226 ] In the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie ( the Coal Fields of Dąbrowa ) region in the Silesian Voivodeship in southerly Poland is an area of sparsely vegetate backbone known as the Błędów Desert. It covers an area of 32 square kilometres ( 12 sq mile ). [ 227 ] It is not a natural desert and was formed by human activity from the Middle Ages onwards. [ 228 ] The Baltic Sea bodily process in Słowiński National Park created sandpaper dunes which in the course of time separated the bay from the sea creating two lakes. As waves and weave transport sandpaper inland the dunes slowly move, at a rate of 3 to 10 metres ( 9.8 to 32.8 foot ) per year. Some dunes reach the stature of up to 30 metres ( 98 foot ). The highest acme of the park is Rowokol at 115 metres or 377 feet above sea level. [ 229 ]

Waters

The Vistula is the longest river in Poland, flowing the entire length of the area for 1,047 kilometres ( 651 security service ). The longest rivers are the Vistula ( polish : Wisła ), 1,047 kilometres ( 651 secret intelligence service ) farseeing ; the Oder ( polish : Odra ) which forms separate of Poland ‘s western boundary line, 854 kilometres ( 531 nautical mile ) long ; its tributary, the Warta, 808 kilometres ( 502 mi ) long ; and the Bug, a tributary of the Vistula, 772 kilometres ( 480 nautical mile ) long. The Vistula and the Oder flow into the Baltic Sea, as do numerous smaller rivers in Pomerania. [ 230 ] Poland ‘s drawn-out waterways have been used since early times for navigation ; the Vikings ventured up the polish rivers in their longships. [ 231 ] In the Middle Ages and in early modern times, the cargo of tangible goods down the Vistula toward Gdańsk and forth to other parts of Europe took on great importance. [ 232 ] With about ten thousand close bodies of water covering more than 1 hectare ( 2.47 acres ) each, Poland has one of the highest numbers of lakes in the world. In Europe, only Finland has a greater density of lakes. [ 233 ] The largest lakes, covering more than 100 square kilometres ( 39 sq mile ), are Lake Śniardwy and Lake Mamry in Masuria vitamin a well as Lake Łebsko and Lake Drawsko in Pomerania. The lake with the greatest depth—of more than 100 metres ( 328 foot ) —is Lake Hańcza in the Wigry Lake District, east of Masuria in Podlaskie Voivodeship .
The polish Baltic coast is approximately 770 kilometres ( 478 nautical mile ) farseeing and extends from Świnoujście on the islands of Usedom and Wolin in the west to Krynica Morska on the Vistula Spit in the east. [ 234 ] For the most part, Poland has a legato coastline, which has been shaped by the continual campaign of backbone by currents and winds. This continual erosion and deposition has formed cliffs, dunes, and spits, many of which have migrated landwards to close off erstwhile lagoons, such as Łebsko Lake in the Słowiński National Park. The largest spits are Hel Peninsula and the Vistula Spit. The coast line is varied besides by Szczecin and Vistula Lagoons and several lakes, including Jamno. The largest polish Baltic island is Wolin, located within Wolin National Park. The largest ocean harbor are Szczecin, Świnoujście, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Police and Kołobrzeg and the main coastal resorts – Świnoujście, Międzydzdroje, Kołobrzeg, Łeba, Sopot, Władysławowo and the Hel Peninsula. In the valley of Pilica river in Tomaszów Mazowiecki there is a singular natural karst form of water containing calcium salts, that is an object of protection at Blue Springs Nature Reserve in the Sulejów Landscape Park. The red waves are absorbed by water, hence only blue and fleeceable are reflected from the bottom of the leap, giving the water system atypical semblance. [ 235 ]

Land use

Forests cover about 29.6 % of Poland ‘s land area based on external standards. [ 236 ] Its overall share is inactive increasing. Forests of Poland are managed by the national plan of reforestation ( KPZL ), aiming at an increase of forest-cover to 33 % in 2050. The largest afforest complex in Poland is Lower Silesian Wilderness. [ 236 ] More than 1 % of Poland ‘s district, 3,145 squarely kilometres ( 1,214 sq security service ), is protected within 23 polish national parks. [ 237 ] Three more national parks are projected for Masuria, the polish Jura, and the easterly Beskids. In summation, wetlands along lakes and rivers in central Poland are legally protected, as are coastal areas in the union. There are 123 areas designated as landscape parks, along with numerous nature reserves and early protected areas under the Natura 2000 network. [ 238 ] In 2017, approximately 16,400,000 hectares ( 164,000 km2 ) of land was occupied by farms and farmsteads, over half of Poland ‘s full area. [ 239 ]

biodiversity

Phytogeographically, Poland belongs to the Central European province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Poland belongs to three Palearctic Ecoregions of the continental forest spanning Central and Northern European temperate broadleaf and blend afforest ecoregions, american samoa well as the Carpathian montane conifer afforest. The most common deciduous trees found across the area are oak, maple, and beech ; the most common conifers are ache, spruce up, and fir. [ 240 ] An estimated 68.7 % of all forests are coniferous. [ 241 ] Poland has historically been home to rare species of animals, a well as the two largest european mammals : the wisent ( żubr ) and aurochs ( tur ). The last aurochs of Europe became extinct in 1627 in the polish Jaktorów Forest, while the wisent survived until the twentieth hundred only at Białowieża. It has been since reintroduced to other countries. [ 242 ] other rampantly species include the embrown bear in Białowieża, in the Tatras, and in the Beskids ; the gray wolf and the eurasian lynx in versatile forests ; the elk in northerly Poland ; and the beaver in Masuria, Pomerania, and Podlaskie. [ 243 ]
Game animals such as red deer, roe deer, and wilderness boar are found in most woodlands. eastern Poland abounds in ancient woods, like the Białowieża Forest, that have not been disturbed by homo or industrial bodily process. There are besides large forested areas in the mountains, Greater Poland, Pomerania, Lubusz Land, and Lower Silesia. The Lubusz Voivodeship is presently the most arboraceous province in the nation ; 52 % of its district is occupied by forests. [ 245 ] Poland is besides a significant breeding ground for a assortment of european migrant birds. [ 246 ] One quarter of the ball-shaped population of white storks ( 40,000 breeding pairs ) live in Poland, [ 247 ] particularly in the lake districts and the wetlands along the Biebrza, the Narew, and the Warta, which are separate of nature reserves or national parks .

climate

average annual temperatures The climate is by and large moderate throughout the state. The climate is oceanic in the northwest and becomes gradually affectionate and continental towards the southeast. Summers are generally warmly, with median temperatures between 18 and 30 °C ( 64.4 and 86.0 °F ) depending on the region. Winters are preferably cold, with average temperatures around 3 °C ( 37.4 °F ) in the northwest and −6 °C ( 21 °F ) in the northeasterly. precipitation falls throughout the year, although, specially in the east, winter is drier than summer. [ 248 ] The warmest region in Poland is Lower Silesia ( Lower Silesian Voivodeship ) in the southwest of the state, where temperatures in the summer average between 24 and 32 °C ( 75 and 90 °F ) but can go a eminent as 34 to 39 °C ( 93.2 to 102.2 °F ) on some days in the warmest months of July and August. The warmest cities in Poland are Tarnów in Lesser Poland, and Wrocław in Lower Silesia. The average temperatures in Wrocław are 20 °C ( 68 °F ) in the summer and 0 °C ( 32.0 °F ) in the winter, but Tarnów has the longest summer in all of Poland, which lasts for 115 days, from mid-may to mid-September. The coldest region of Poland is in the northeasterly, around the area of Suwałki within the Podlaskie Voivodeship, where the climate is affected by cold fronts coming from Scandinavia and Siberia. The median temperature in the winter in Podlaskie ranges from −6 to −4 °C ( 21 to 25 °F ). The biggest impact of the oceanic climate is observed in Świnoujście and Baltic Sea seashore sphere from Police to Słupsk. [ 249 ]

Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for the largest cities in Poland[250]

Location

July (°C)

July (°F)

January (°C)

January (°F)

Warsaw
25/14
77/58
1/−4
33/24

Kraków
25/13
77/56
1/−5
33/23

Wrocław
26/14
78/57
3/−3
37/26

Poznań
25/14
77/57
2/–3
35/26

Gdańsk
21/13
71/55
1/−4
34/25

Government and politics

Poland is a representative majority rule, with a president as the principal of submit. [ 251 ] [ 252 ] The government structure centers on the Council of Ministers, led by a prime minister. The president appoints the cabinet according to the proposals of the prime curate, typically from the majority alliance in the Sejm. The president is elected by popular vote every five years. The stream president is Andrzej Duda and the choice minister is Mateusz Morawiecki. [ 253 ] polish voters elect a bicameral parliament consist of a 460-member lower house ( Sejm ) and a 100-member Senate ( Senat ). The Sejm is elected under proportional representation according to the d’Hondt method, a method acting similar to that used in many parliamentary political systems. The Senat, on the other hand, is elected under the first-past-the-post vote method acting, with one senator being returned from each of the 100 constituencies. [ 254 ]
With the exception of heathen minority parties, only candidates of political parties receiving at least 5 % of the total home vote can enter the Sejm. When sitting in a joint school term, members of the Sejm and Senat form the National Assembly ( the Zgromadzenie Narodowe ). The National Assembly is formed on three occasions : when a new president takes the oath of office ; when an indictment against the President of the Republic is brought to the State Tribunal ( Trybunał Stanu ) ; and when a president ‘s permanent incapacity to exercise his duties due to the state of his health is declared. To go steady, only the inaugural exemplify has occurred. [ 255 ] The judicial branch plays an important function in decision-making. Its major institutions include the Supreme Court ( Sąd Najwyższy ) ; the Supreme Administrative Court ( Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny ) ; the Constitutional Tribunal ( Trybunał Konstytucyjny ) ; and the State Tribunal ( Trybunał Stanu ). On the approval of the Senat, the Sejm besides appoints the ombudsman or the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection ( Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich ) for a five-year term. The ombudsman has the duty of guarding the observation and implementation of the rights and liberties of polish citizens and residents, of the law and of principles of community life sentence and sociable justice. [ 256 ]

law

The Constitution of Poland is the ordain sovereign jurisprudence, and the polish legal system is based on the principle of civil rights, governed by the code of civil jurisprudence. The current democratic constitution was adopted by the National Assembly of Poland on 2 April 1997 ; it guarantees a multi-party state with freedoms of religion, lecture and forum, prohibits the practices of constrained checkup experiment, agony or bodied punishment, and acknowledges the inviolability of the home, the correct to form trade wind unions, and the right to strike. [ 258 ] The judiciary incorporates a four-tier motor hotel system composed of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, Common Courts ( District, Regional, Appellate ) and the military Court. [ 259 ] Judges are nominated by the National Council of the Judiciary and are appointed for life by the president. [ 260 ] The Constitutional and State Tribunals are separate judicial bodies, which rule the constitutional liability of people holding the highest offices of state and supervise the conformity of statutory police, thus protecting the Constitution. [ 261 ]
historically, the most significant polish legal act is the Constitution of 3 May 1791, the first advanced united states constitution in Europe. [ 257 ] Instituted as a Government Act, it was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the federative Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its Golden Liberty. previously, only the Henrician Articles ( 1573 ) signed by each of Poland ‘s elected sovereign could perform the function of a set of basic laws. The fresh Constitution introduced political equality between town and the nobility ( szlachta ), and placed the peasants under the protection of the government. It abolished insidious parliamentary policies such as the liberum veto, which permitted any deputy to rescind all the legislation passed in the interest of a foreign ability. The 3 May Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the state ‘s reactionary magnates, with a more egalitarian and democratic constitutional monarchy. The Constitution influenced many later democratic movements across the earth. [ 262 ] [ 263 ] Tax-paying women were allowed to take part in polish political life until the third partition in 1795. In 1918 the Second Polish Republic became one of the first countries to introduce universal women ‘s right to vote. [ 264 ] Poland has a low homicide rate at 0.7 murders per 100,000 people, as of 2018. [ 25 ] Rape, assault and violent crime stay at a very moo grade, although not all cases are recorded by the authorities. [ 265 ] [ 266 ] [ 267 ] miscarriage is permitted only in cases of rape, incest or when the charwoman ‘s liveliness is in danger. [ 268 ] Congenital disorderliness and spontaneous abortion are not covered by the law, forcing some women to seek miscarriage afield, and others to seek the aid of psychiatrists will to testify on the veto psychological shock of spontaneous abortion. [ 269 ] Poland does not criminalize homosexuality, and its legality was confirmed in 1932. [ 270 ] [ 271 ] The polish Constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a charwoman. [ 272 ]

foreign relations

Poland is the fifth most populous extremity department of state of the European Union and has a deluxe full of 52 representatives in the european Parliament as of 2020. [ 273 ] Since joining the marriage in 2004, consecutive polish governments have pursued policies to extend the country ‘s role in european and international affairs. Poland is an emerging regional power in Central Europe. [ 274 ] The capital of Warsaw serves as the headquarter for Frontex, [ 275 ] the European Union ‘s representation for external surround security a well as ODIHR, one of the chief institutions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. [ 276 ] apart from the European Union, Poland has been a member of NATO since 1999, the UN, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD ) since 1996, european Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, european Space Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle, Schengen Agreement, Lublin Triangle and Bucharest Nine. Over the past two decades, Poland importantly strengthened its ties with the United States, therefore becoming one of its closest allies in Europe. [ 277 ] [ 278 ] Poland was partially of the US-led coalescence effect during the Iraq War in 2003, and sent its troops in the first phase of the conflict, jointly with the United Kingdom and Australia. Along with NATO, Poland maintains military presence in the Middle East, the Baltic states and in the Balkans. [ 279 ] [ 280 ] Historically, Poland has had particularly friendly relations with Hungary ; this special kinship was recognized by the parliaments of both countries in 2007 with the joint declaration of March 23 as “ The Day of Polish-Hungarian Friendship ”. [ 281 ]

military

The polish Armed Forces are composed of five branches – Land Forces ( Wojska Lądowe ), Navy ( Marynarka Wojenna ), Air Force ( Siły Powietrzne ), particular Forces ( Wojska Specjalne ) and the Territorial Defence Force ( Wojska Obrony Terytorialnej ). The military is subordinate to the Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Poland. however, its commander-in-chief in peacetime is the President of the Republic, who nominates officers, the Minister for National Defence and the foreman of staff. [ 282 ] [ 283 ] polish military custom is by and large commemorated by the Armed Forces Day, celebrated per annum on 15 August. [ 284 ] As of 2018, the polish Armed Forces have a compound military capability of 144,142 soldiers. [ 285 ] The polish Navy chiefly operates on the Baltic Sea and conducts operations such as maritime patrol, search and rescue for the section of the Baltic under Polish reign, ampere well as hydrographic measurements and research. The polish Air Force routinely takes separate in Baltic Air Policing assignments. In 2003, the F-16C Block 52 was selected as the new general multi-role combatant for the air travel effect. In January 2020, Poland has approved the delivery for F-35 Lightning II fight aircraft. [ 286 ] [ 287 ] Poland is presently spending 2 % of its GDP on defense ( approximately US $ 13.5 billion in 2020 ), which is expected to grow to 2.5 % by 2030. [ 288 ] According to SIPRI, the country exported EUR€487 million worth of arms and armaments to other countries, primarily to the United States, Chile, France and South Africa. [ 289 ]
The mission of the armed forces is the defense of Poland ‘s territorial integrity and polish interests afield. [ 290 ] The state ‘s home security goal is to further integrate with NATO and european defense mechanism, economic, and political institutions. [ 290 ] Compulsory military avail for men was discontinued in 2008. From 2007, until conscription ended in 2008, the mandatary service was nine months. [ 291 ] polish military doctrine reflects the same defensive nature as that of its NATO partners and the state actively hosts NATO ‘s military exercises. [ 292 ] From 1953 to 2009 Poland was a big contributor to versatile United Nations peacekeeping missions. [ 290 ] [ 293 ] The polish Armed Forces took share in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, deploying 2,500 soldiers in the south of that country and commanding the 17-nation multinational force in Iraq. Poland besides maintains troops in the Middle East, the Baltic states and in the Balkans ; 1,650 soldiers were deployed in 2019. [ 294 ]

Law enforcement and emergency services

Law enforcement in Poland is performed by several agencies which are subordinate to the Ministry of Interior and Administration – the State Police ( Policja ), assigned to investigate crimes or transgression ; the Municipal City Guard, which maintains public order ; and several specify agencies, such as the polish Border Guard. [ 295 ] Private security firms are besides common, although they possess no legal authority to arrest or detain a defendant. [ 295 ] [ 296 ] Municipal guards are primarily headed by provincial, regional or city councils ; person guards are not permitted to carry firearms unless instructed by their superior control officer or commanding officer. [ 297 ] The Internal Security Agency ( ABW, or ISA in English ) is the chief counter-intelligence instrument safeguarding Poland ‘s inner security, along with Agencja Wywiadu ( AW ) which identifies threats and collects secret information afield. [ 298 ] The Central Investigation Bureau of Police ( CBŚP ) and the Central Anticorruption Bureau ( CBA ) are creditworthy for countering organized crime and corruption in state and private institutions. [ 299 ] [ 300 ] emergency services in Poland consist of the emergency aesculapian services, search and rescue units of the Polish Armed Forces and State Fire Service. Emergency medical services in Poland are operated by local and regional governments, [ 301 ] but are a part of the centralized national representation – the National Medical Emergency Service ( Państwowe Ratownictwo Medyczne ). [ 302 ] All emergency services personnel are uniform and security system services can be easily recognized during regular patrols in both big urban areas or smaller suburban localities. [ 303 ]

administrative divisions

Poland ‘s current voivodeships ( provinces ) are largely based on the nation ‘s historic regions, whereas those of the past two decades ( to 1998 ) had been centred on and named for individual cities. The new units range in area from less than 10,000 square kilometres ( 3,900 sq myocardial infarction ) for Opole Voivodeship to more than 35,000 square kilometres ( 14,000 sq michigan ) for Masovian Voivodeship. administrative authority at the voivodeship flat is shared between a government-appointed voivode ( governor ), an elective regional assembly ( sejmik ) and a voivodeship marshal, an executive elected by that assembly.

The voivodeships are subdivided into powiats ( much referred to in English as counties ), and these are far divided into gminas ( besides known as communes or municipalities ). major cities normally have the condition of both gmina and powiat. Poland has 16 voivodeships, 380 powiats ( including 66 cities with powiat status ), and 2,478 gminas .

economy

A proportional representation of Poland exports, 2019 Poland ‘s economy and Gross Domestic Product ( GDP ) is presently the sixth largest in the European Union by nominative standards, and the fifth largest by purchasing might parity. It is besides one of the fastest growing within the Union. [ 309 ] about 60 % of the employed population belongs to the third avail sector, 30 % to industry and manufacture, and the remaining 10 % to the agricultural sector. [ 310 ] Although Poland is a extremity of EU ‘s individual market, the nation has not adopted the Euro as legal bid and maintains its own currency – the polish złoty ( zł, PLN ). Poland is the regional economic drawing card in Central Europe, with closely 40 per cent of the 500 biggest companies in the region ( by revenues ) ampere well as a senior high school globalization rate. [ 311 ] The country ‘s largest firms compose the WIG20 and WIG30 indexes, which is traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. According to reports made by the National Bank of Poland, the prize of polish foreign direct investments reached about 300 billion PLN at the end of 2014. The Central Statistical Office estimated that in 2014 there were 1,437 polish corporations with interests in 3,194 foreign entities. [ 312 ] Having a firm domestic market, low individual debt, broken unemployment rate, flexible currency, and not being dependent on a single export sector, Poland is the only european economy to have avoided the recess of 2008. [ 313 ] The area is the twentieth largest exporter of goods and services in the earth and its most successful exports include machinery, furniture, food products, dress, shoes, cosmetics and television games. [ 314 ] [ 315 ] [ 316 ] Exports of goods and services are valued at approximately 56 % of GDP, as of 2020. [ 317 ] Poland ‘s largest trade partners include Germany, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, France and Italy. [ 318 ] [ 319 ] In September 2018, the unemployment rate was estimated at 5.7 %, one of the lowest in the European Union. [ 320 ] In 2019, Poland passed a law that would exempt workers under the age of 26 from income tax. [ 321 ]
The polish bank sector is the largest in the region, [ 322 ] with 32.3 branches per 100,000 adults. [ 323 ] [ 324 ] The banks are the largest and most develop sector of the state ‘s fiscal markets. They are regulated by the polish Financial Supervision Authority. Poland ‘s bank sector has approximately 5 national banks, a net of closely 600 cooperative banks and 18 branches of foreign-owned banks. In addition, foreign investors have controlling stakes in about 40 commercial banks, which make up 68 % of the banking capital. [ 322 ] Products and goods manufactured in Poland include : electronics, buses and trams ( Solaris, Solbus ), helicopters and planes ( PZL Świdnik, PZL Mielec ), trains ( Pesa, Newag ), ships ( Gdańsk Shipyard, Szczecin Shipyard ), military equipment ( FB “ Łucznik ” Radom, Bumar-Łabędy, Jelcz ), medicines ( Polpharma, Polfa ), food ( Tymbark, Hortex, E. Wedel ), clothes ( LLP ), glass, pottery ( Bolesławiec ), chemical products and others. well-known brands and companies include Alior Bank, Orlen & Lotos Group, Inglot Cosmetics, Plus, Play, Brainly, Netguru, GOG.com, CD Projekt, Trefl and Allegro. Poland is besides one of the world ‘s biggest producers of copper, ash grey, ember, furniture, automotive parts and balmy drink. [ 325 ] [ 326 ] [ 327 ]

tourism

Poland experienced a significant increase in the act of tourists after joining the European Union in 2004. [ 328 ] [ 329 ] With closely 21 million international arrivals in 2019, tourism contributes well to the overall economy and makes up a relatively big proportion of the country ‘s service market. [ 330 ] [ 331 ] tourist attractions in Poland vary, from the mountains in the south to the arenaceous beaches in the north, with a trail of about every architectural style. The most visit city is Kraków, which was the former capital of Poland and serves as a keepsake of the polish Golden Age and the Renaissance. Kraków besides held royal coronations of most polish kings and monarchs at Wawel, the nation ‘s chief historic landmark. Among other luminary sites in the nation is Wrocław, one of the oldest cities in Poland which was a model for the establish of Kraków. Wrocław is celebrated for its dwarf statues, a big commercialize square with two town halls, and the oldest zoological Gardens with one of the populace ‘s largest number of animal species. The polish capital Warsaw and its historic Old Town were wholly reconstructed after wartime destruction. other cities attracting countless tourists include Gdańsk, Poznań, Lublin, Toruń vitamin a well as the locate of the german Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim. A luminary highlight is the 13th-century Wieliczka Salt Mine with its labyrinthine tunnels, a subterranean lake and chapels carved by miners out of rock salt beneath the ground .
Poland ‘s main tourist offerings include outdoor activities such as ski, sailing, mountain hike and climb, american samoa well as agritourism, sightseeing historical monuments. tourist destinations include the Baltic Sea coast in the union ; the Masurian Lake District and Białowieża Forest in the east ; on the south Karkonosze, the postpone Mountains and the Tatra Mountains, where Rysy – the highest flower of Poland, and Eagle ‘s Path mountain drag are located. The Pieniny and Bieszczady Mountains lie in the extreme southeast. [ 332 ] There are over 100 castles in the area, most in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, and besides on the Trail of the Eagles ‘ Nests. [ 333 ] The largest castle in the earth by down area is situated in Malbork, in north-central Poland. [ 334 ]

Energy

The electricity coevals sector in Poland is largely fossil-fuel –based. many power plants countrywide use Poland ‘s position as a major european exporter of coal to their advantage by continuing to use char as the primary coil raw material in the production of their energy. In 2013, Poland scored 48 out of 129 states in the Energy Sustainability Index. [ 335 ] The three largest polish coal mining firms ( Węglokoks, Kompania Węglowa and JSW ) extract around 100 million tonnes of coal per annum. renewable forms of energy report for a smaller proportion of Poland ‘s wax energy generation capacitance. [ 336 ] however, the national government has set targets for the development of renewable energy sources in Poland ( the share of energy from renewable sources in the crude final energy consumption in 2019 was – 12,18 % ). Increasing the plowshare of energy from renewable sources and a significant decrease in CO2 emissions to be achieved with the help of biofuels, photovoltaics, construction of wind farms on the farming and the Baltic Sea, hydroelectric stations and nuclear office plant. Poland has about 164,800,000,000 m3 of prove natural boast reserves and around 96,380,000 barrels of prove oil reserves. These reserves are exploited by energy provision companies such as PKN Orlen ( “ the only polish company listed in the Fortune Global 500 “ ), PGNiG. however, the small amounts of fossil fuels naturally occurring in Poland are insufficient to satisfy the full energy pulmonary tuberculosis needs of the population and diligence. consequently, the country is a net importer of oil and natural gas. therefore, since the second decade of the twenty-first century, Poland has been strongly developing the alleged North Gate in which the most significant components are the Baltic Pipe, the Świnoujście LNG terminal and Floating Storage and Regasification Unit in Port of Gdańsk. The five largest companies supplying Poland electricity are PGE, Tauron, Enea, Energa and Innogy Poland .

ecstasy

transport in Poland is provided by means of rail, road, marine ship and vent travel. The country is part of EU ‘s Schengen Area and is an important transmit hub along neighbouring Germany ascribable to its strategic position in Central Europe. [ 337 ] Some of the longest european routes, including the E40, run through Poland. The nation has a thoroughly network of highways, composed of express roads and motorways. At the start of 2020, Poland had 4,146.5 km ( 2,576.5 myocardial infarction ) of highways in use. [ 338 ] In addition, all local and regional roads are monitored by the National Road Rebuilding Programme, which aims to improve the choice of travel in the countryside and suburban localities. [ 339 ] In 2017, the nation had 18,513 kilometres ( 11,503 myocardial infarction ) of railway track, the third longest in Europe after Germany and France. [ 340 ] The polish State Railways ( PKP ) is the dominant railway operator in the nation. In December 2014, Poland began to implement high–speed rail routes connecting major polish cities, [ 341 ] and started passenger servicing using the New Pendolino train, operating at 200 kilometers per hour on the Central Rail Line ( CMK ). polish regulations allow trains without ETCS to travel at speeds up to 160 km/h, trains with ETCS1 astir to 200 km/h, and trains with ETCS2 at over 200 km/h. Most inter-regional connections rail routes in Poland are operated by PKP Intercity, whilst regional trains are run by a count of private operators, the largest of which is Polregio. The largest passenger train place in terms of the count of travelers is Wrocław Główny .
The air and maritime transport markets in Poland are largely well developed. Poland has a total of international airports, the largest of which is Warsaw Chopin Airport, the primary ball-shaped hub for LOT Polish Airlines. It was established in 1928 from a fusion of Aerolloyd ( 1922 ) and Aero ( 1925 ). early major airports with international connections include John Paul II International Airport Kraków–Balice, Copernicus Airport Wrocław, Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport. Poland has begun preparations for a construction that can handle 100 million passengers of the Central Communication Port. Seaports exist all along Poland ‘s Baltic slide, with most freight operations using Świnoujście, Police, Szczecin, Kołobrzeg, Gdynia, Gdańsk and Elbląg as their base. Passenger ferries link Poland with Scandinavia all year round ; these services are provided from Gdańsk and Świnoujście by Polferries, Stena Line from Gdynia and Unity Line from the Świnoujście. The Port of Gdańsk is the only port in the Baltic Sea adapted to receive oceanic vessels .

science and technology

Over the course of history, the polish people have made considerable contributions in the fields of skill, technology and mathematics. [ 343 ] possibly the most celebrated Pole to support this theory was Nicolaus Copernicus ( Mikołaj Kopernik ), who triggered the copernican Revolution by placing the Sun quite than the land at the center of the universe. [ 344 ] He besides derived a measure theory of money, which made him a pioneer of economics. Copernicus ‘ achievements and discoveries are considered the basis of polish culture and cultural identity. [ 345 ] Poland ‘s tertiary education institutions ; traditional universities, adenine well as technical, medical, and economic institutions, employ around tens of thousands of researchers and staff members. There are hundreds of inquiry and exploitation institutes. [ 346 ] however, in the 19th and twentieth centuries many polish scientists worked abroad ; one of the most authoritative of these exiles was Maria Skłodowska-Curie, a physicist and chemist who lived a lot of her life in France. In 1925 she established Poland ‘s Radium Institute. [ 342 ]
Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th century Polish astronomer who formulated the heliocentric model of the solar system that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center. In the first half of the twentieth century, Poland was a boom kernel of mathematics. Outstanding polish mathematicians formed the Lwów School of Mathematics ( with Stefan Banach, Stanisław Mazur, Hugo Steinhaus, Stanisław Ulam ) and Warsaw School of Mathematics ( with Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Kuratowski, Wacław Sierpiński and Antoni Zygmund ). numerous mathematicians, scientists, chemists or economists emigrated due to historic vicissitudes, among them Benoit Mandelbrot, Leonid Hurwicz, Alfred Tarski, Joseph Rotblat and Nobel Prize laureates Roald Hoffmann, Georges Charpak and Tadeusz Reichstein. In the 1930s, mathematician and cryptanalyst Marian Rejewski invented the Cryptographic Bomb which formed the basis of the feat that allowed the Allies to crack the Enigma code. Over 40 research and development centers and 4,500 researchers make Poland the biggest inquiry and growth hub in Central and Eastern Europe. [ 347 ] [ 348 ] Multinational companies such as : ABB, Delphi, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Hewlett–Packard, IBM, Intel, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Motorola, Siemens and Samsung all have set up research and development centres in Poland. [ 349 ] Companies chose Poland because of the handiness of highly qualified british labour party effect, presence of universities, back of authorities, and the largest commercialize in East-Central Europe. [ 347 ] According to a KPMG report from 2011, 80 % of Poland ‘s current investors are contented with their choice and will to reinvest. [ 350 ] Poland was ranked 38th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 39th in 2019. [ 351 ] [ 352 ] [ 353 ] [ 354 ] Poland has a identical well-developed e-administration, thanks to which many official matters can be easily and cursorily settled via the Internet. In the UN rate, Poland is in the top twenty countries with the best-rated e-administration in the global .

Demographics

Poland, with approximately 38.5 million inhabitants, has the ninth-largest population in Europe and the fifth-largest in the European Union. It has a population density of 122 inhabitants per public square kilometer ( 328 per public square sea mile ). The total richness rate in 2020 was estimated at 1.44 children born to a womanhood, a considerable rise from previous years. [ 355 ] In contrast, the sum richness rate in 1925 was 4.68. [ 356 ] Furthermore, Poland ‘s population is aging significantly and the median senesce in 2018 was 41.1 years. [ 357 ] The crude death rate in 2020 stand at 10.3 per 1,000 people. [ 358 ]
population of Poland from 1900 to 2010 in millions of inhabitants Around 60 % of Poles and polish citizens reside in urban areas or major cities and 40 % in more rural zones. [ 357 ] The most populous administrative state or department of state is the Masovian Voivodeship and the most populous city is the capital, Warsaw, at 1.8 million inhabitants with a further 2-3 million people living in its metropolitan area. [ 359 ] [ 360 ] [ 361 ] The metropolitan area of Katowice is the largest urban conurbation in Poland with a population between 2.7 million [ 362 ] and 5.3 million residents. [ 363 ] The least populous and the smallest province in size is the Opole Voivodeship, with just under 1 million people living within its borders. Hence, a substantial dowry of the total population is concentrated in the confederacy of Poland, roughly between the cities of Wrocław and Kraków. In the 2011 Polish census, 37,310,341 people reported polish identity, 846,719 Silesian, 232,547 Kashubian and 147,814 german. other identities were reported by 163,363 people ( 0.41 % ) and 521,470 people ( 1.35 % ) did not specify any nationality. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Once big but now statistically insignificant minority groups include polish Jews, Lipka Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Lemkos, the Romani people and the Vietnamese. ethnic Poles themselves can be divided into many diverse regional ethnographic sub-groups, most luminary being the Kashubians, Silesians and Gorals ( Highlanders ). The statistics do not include recently arrived migrant workers. [ 364 ] [ 365 ] More than 1.7 million ukrainian citizens worked legally in Poland in 2017. [ 366 ] There is a very strong polish diaspora around the worldly concern, notably in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom and Canada. [ 367 ] A strong polish minority is still show in the territories of contemporary westerly Ukraine and Belarus, eastern Lithuania, eastern and central Latvia, and northeastern Czech Republic, which were part of Poland in the past. raw, the number of heathen Poles living abroad is estimated to be around 20 million. [ 368 ]

Languages

Dolina Jadwigi — a — a bilingual Polish- Kashubian road sign of the zodiac with the village name polish is the merely official and overriding spoken linguistic process in Poland, but it is besides used throughout the worldly concern by polish minorities in other countries a well as being one of the official languages of the European Union. The deaf communities use polish Sign Language belonging to the german family of Sign Languages. polish is besides a second speech in parts of Lithuania, where it is taught in Polish-minority schools. [ 369 ] [ 370 ] Contemporary Poland is a linguistically homogeneous nation, with about 97 % of respondents declaring polish as their beget spit. [ 371 ] [ 372 ] Poland ‘s once multiethnic population communicated in numerous languages and lects which faded or disappeared along the path of history. There are presently 15 [ 373 ] minority languages in Poland, including one recognized regional speech, Kashubian, which is spoken by around 366,000 people in the northern regions of Kashubia and Pomerania. [ 374 ] [ 375 ] [ 376 ] Languages having a minority condition are armenian, belarusian, Czech, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Russian, Slovak and Ukrainian. Languages having the status of ethnic minority ‘s language are Karaim, Lemko-Rusyn, Tatar and two Romani languages ; Polska Roma and Bergitka Roma. [ 377 ] Official recognition of a language provides certain rights under conditions prescribed by polish law, including education and state fiscal support for promoting that lyric. Poland recognized secondary administrative languages or auxiliary languages in bilingual municipalities. [ 378 ] Currently, German and Kashubian hold such condition in 19 municipalities ( gminas ), Belarusian in 9 and Lithuanian in 1. bilingual signs, names and advertisements are commonplace in those localities. Silesian and Wymysorys ( Vilamovian ) are not legally recognized or acknowledged as separate languages with a minority condition. More than 50 % of polish citizens declare at least basic cognition of the English lyric, followed by German ( 38 % ). [ 379 ] [ 380 ]

religion

Religions in Poland (2015)

Roman Catholic

92.9%

Irreligion

3.1%

No answer

2.7%

Other faiths

1.3%

Numbers from the Central Statistical Office:[381]
According to the 2015 census, 92.9 % of all polish citizens adhere to the Roman Catholic Church. An calculate 94.2 % of the population are believers and 3.1 % are irreligious, making Poland one of the more devout countries in Europe. [ 382 ] round 61.6 % of all respondents outlined that religion is of high or very high importance. [ 382 ] however, church attendance has decreased in holocene years ; only 38 % of worshippers attended mass regularly on Sunday in 2018. [ 383 ] Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the polish Constitution, [ 384 ] [ 385 ] and the covenant guarantees the teaching of religion in state schools. [ 386 ]
For centuries the tribes inhabiting the lands of contemporary Poland have practised versatile forms of paganism known as Rodzimowierstwo, or “ native faith ”. [ 387 ] [ 388 ] [ 389 ] In the class 966, Duke Mieszko I converted to Christianity, and submitted to the agency of the Roman Catholic Church. [ 390 ] [ 391 ] This event came to be known as the Baptism of Poland. [ 392 ] [ 393 ] [ 394 ] however, this did not put an end to pagan beliefs in the country. The doggedness was demonstrated by a series of rebellions in the 1030s known as the heathen reaction, which besides showed elements of a peasant originate against chivalric feudalism. [ 395 ] [ 396 ]
religious allowance was an significant part of polish political culture, though it varied at times. In 1264, the Statute of Kalisz granted Jews unprecedented legal rights not found anywhere in Europe. In 1573, the Warsaw Confederation marked the conventional get down of across-the-board religious freedoms in Poland. It was partially influenced by the 1572 St. Bartholomew ‘s Day Massacre in France, which prompted the nobility to prevent the monarch from carrying out condemnable atrocities in Poland based on religious affiliation. [ 397 ] The religious permissiveness besides spurred many theological movements such as the Calvinist Polish Brethren, a number of Protestant groups and atheists like Casimir Liszinski, one of the beginning atheist thinkers in Europe. [ 398 ] Anabaptists fleeing 16th-century persecution in the Netherlands and Germany settled in Poland and became known as the Vistula delta Mennonites. From 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła was head of the Roman Catholic Church as Pope John Paul II. [ 399 ] [ 400 ] [ 401 ] Contemporary religious minorities include christian Orthodox ( 506,800 ), [ 9 ] versatile Protestants ( 150,000 ) — including 77,500 Lutherans of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church, [ 9 ] 23,000 Pentecostals in the Pentecostal Church in Poland, 10,000 Adventists in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and other smaller evangelical denominations [ 9 ] — Jehovah ‘s Witnesses ( 126,827 ), [ 9 ] Eastern Catholics, Mariavites, Jews, Muslims ( Tatars ) and neopagans, some of whom are members of the Native Polish Church .
celebrated sites of Roman Catholic pilgrimage in Poland include the Monastery of Jasna Góra in the city of Częstochowa, Basilica of Our lady of Licheń, Kraków ‘s Sanctuary of Divine Mercy and Święta Lipka ( Holy Linden ) in Masuria. Tourists besides visit the family home of John Paul II in Wadowice outside Kraków. Christ the King in Świebodzin is the one of the tallest statues of Jesus in the world. [ 402 ] Christian Orthodox pilgrims sojourn Mount Grabarka near Grabarka-Klasztor and the Hasidic Jews travel per annum to the sculpt of a capital rabbi in Leżajsk. [ 403 ]

Health

checkup service providers and hospitals ( szpitale ) in Poland are subordinate to the Ministry of Health ; it provides administrative oversight and examination of general aesculapian drill, and is obliged to maintain a high gear standard of hygiene and patient wish. Poland has a cosmopolitan healthcare system based on an across-the-board indemnity system ; state subsidised healthcare is available to all citizens covered by the general health policy platform of the National Health Fund ( NFZ ). Private medical complexes exist nationally ; over 50 % of the population uses both public and individual sectors. [ 404 ] [ 405 ] [ 406 ] Hospitals are organised according to the regional administrative structure, resultantly most towns, counties or municipalities possess their own provincial hospital or medical clinics. [ 407 ] There are six types of hospital facilities, each with a particular area of aesculapian expertness – I Grade Hospitals for general operating room, internal illnesses and obstetrics ; II Grade Hospitals for child operating room, neurology, cardiology and ophthalmology ; III Grade Hospitals including teaching hospitals for infectious diseases, nephrology, orthopedics, toxicology and transplantology ; Oncology Hospitals for cancer treatment and brachytherapy ; Pediatric Hospitals for child concern ; and Nationwide Hospitals for general and acute care. [ 408 ] According to the Human Development Report from 2020, the average life anticipation at birth is 79 years ( around 75 years for an baby male and 83 years for an baby female ) ; [ 409 ] the state has a low baby mortality rate ( 4 per 1,000 births ). [ 410 ] In 2019, the principal cause of end was ischemic heart disease ; diseases of the circulatory organization accounted for 45 % of all deaths. [ 411 ] [ 412 ] In the like year, Poland was besides the 15th-largest importer of medications and pharmaceutical products. [ 413 ]

education

The Jagiellonian University founded in 1364 by Casimir III in Kraków was the first institution of higher learn established in Poland, and is one of the oldest universities still in continuous operation. [ 414 ] Poland ‘s Commission of National Education ( Komisja Edukacji Narodowej ), established in 1773, was the worldly concern ‘s first state ministry of department of education. [ 415 ] [ 416 ] The framework for primary and junior-grade educate in contemporary Poland is established by the Ministry of National Education. Kindergarten attendance is optional for children aged between three and five, with one year being compulsory for six-year-olds. [ 417 ] [ 418 ] Primary education traditionally begins at the long time of seven, although children aged six can attend at the request of their parents or guardians. [ 418 ] Elementary school spans eight grades, at the end of which an obligatory three-part examination on Polish, mathematics and a extraneous language is to be undertaken. [ 419 ] Secondary schooling is subject on scholar preference – either a four-year high school ( liceum ), a five-year technical school ( technikum ) or diverse vocational studies ( szkoła branżowa ) can be pursued by each individual student. [ 418 ] A liceum or technikum is concluded with a adulthood exit examination ( matura ), which must be passed in order to apply for a university or other institutions of higher learn. [ 420 ] The standards of higher third education are imposed by the Ministry of Science and Higher education. In Poland, there are over 500 university-level institutions, [ 421 ] with technical, checkup, economic, agricultural, pedagogical, theological, musical, maritime and military faculties. [ 422 ] The University of Warsaw and Warsaw Polytechnic, the University of Wrocław, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the University of Technology in Gdańsk are among the most big. [ 423 ] There are three conventional academician degrees in Poland – licencjat or inżynier ( first cycle qualification ), magister ( second cycle qualification ) and doktor ( third cycle reservation ). [ 424 ] In 2018, the Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ranked Poland ‘s educational system higher than the OECD average ; the learn showed that students in Poland perform better academically than in most OECD countries. [ 425 ]

acculturation

The polish of Poland is closely connected with its intricate 1,000-year history and forms an significant part in western civilization. [ 426 ] The Poles take capital pride in their national identity which is often associated with the colours egg white and crimson, and exuded by the expression biało-czerwoni ( “ whitereds ” ). [ 427 ] National symbols, chiefly the crown white-tailed eagle, are much visible on clothe, insignia and emblems. The taste of Poland ‘s traditions and cultural inheritance is normally known as Polonophilia. [ 428 ] With origins in the customs of the tribal Lechites, over clock the polish of Poland has been influenced by its connection to western acculturation and trends, a well as developing its own singular traditions such as Sarmatism. [ 429 ] The people of Poland have traditionally been seen as hospitable to artists from abroad and eager to follow cultural and artistic trends popular in alien countries, for exemplify, the 16th- and 17th-century custom of coffin portraits ( portret trumienny ) was only observed in Poland and Roman Egypt. [ 430 ] In the 19th and 20th centuries the polish focus on cultural promotion often took precession over political and economic action. These factors have contributed to the versatile nature of polish art. [ 429 ] The architectural monuments of great importance are protected by the National Heritage Board of Poland. [ 431 ] Over 100 of the nation ‘s most meaning real wonders were enlisted onto the Historic Monuments Register, [ 432 ] with further 17 being recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. Poland is renowned for its brick Gothic castles, granaries and churches arsenic good as diversely-styled tenements, grocery store squares and township halls. The majority of polish cities founded on Magdeburg Law in the Middle Ages evolved around central marketplaces, a distinct urban characteristic which can be observed to this day. [ 433 ] Medieval and Renaissance cloth halls were once an abundant feature of many towns. [ 434 ]

Holidays and traditions

There are 13 government-approved annual public holidays – New Year on 1 January, Three Kings ‘ Day on 6 January, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, Labour Day on 1 May, Constitution Day on 3 May, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, All Saints ‘ Day on 1 November, Independence Day on 11 November and Christmastide on 25 and 26 December. [ 435 ] particular traditions and superstitious customs observed in Poland are not found elsewhere in Europe. Though Christmas Eve ( Wigilia ) is not a populace holiday, it remains the most memorable day of the entire year. Trees are decorated on 24 December, hay is placed under the tablecloth to resemble Jesus ‘ manger, Christmas wafers ( opłatek ) are shared between gathered guests and a twelve-dish meatless supper is served that same even when the first star appears. [ 436 ] An evacuate plate and buttocks are symbolically left at the table for an unexpected guest. [ 437 ] On occasion, carolers journey around smaller towns with a family Turoń animal until the Lent period. [ 438 ] A widely-popular doughnut and sweet pastry feed occurs on Fat Thursday, normally 52 days prior to Easter. [ 439 ] Eggs for Holy Sunday are painted and placed in deck baskets that are previously blessed by clergymen in churches on Easter Saturday. Easter Monday is celebrated with heathen dyngus festivities, where the young is engaged in urine fights. [ 440 ] [ 439 ] Cemeteries and graves of the deceased are annually visited by family members on All Saints ‘ Day ; tombstones are cleaned as a sign of respect and candles are lit to honour the all in on an unprecedented scale. [ 441 ]

music

Artists from Poland, including celebrated musicians such as Chopin, Rubinstein, Paderewski, Penderecki and Wieniawski, and traditional, regionalized family composers create a lively and diverse music scene, which even recognizes its own music genres, such as whistle poetry and disco polo. [ 442 ] The origins of polish music can be traced to the thirteenth century ; manuscripts have been found in Stary Sącz containing polyphonic compositions related to the Parisian Notre Dame School. other early compositions, such as the tune of Bogurodzica and God Is Born ( a coronation polonaise tune for polish kings by an unknown composer ), may besides date back to this period, however, the first base known celebrated composer, Nicholas of Radom, lived in the fifteenth century. Diomedes Cato, a native-born italian who lived in Kraków, became a celebrated lutist at the woo of Sigismund III ; he not only imported some of the musical styles from southern Europe but blended them with native family music. [ 443 ]
In the 17th and 18th centuries, polish baroque composers wrote liturgical music and secular compositions such as concertos and sonatas for voices or instruments. At the end of the eighteenth century, polish classical music evolved into national forms like the polonaise. Wojciech Bogusławski is accredited with composing the first polish national opera, titled Krakowiacy i Górale, which premiered in 1794. [ 444 ] traditional polish tribe music has had a major effect on the works of many polish composers, and no more so than on Fryderyk Chopin, a widely recognised national champion of the arts. All of Chopin ‘s works involve the piano and are technically demanding, emphasising nuance and expressive depth. As a great composer, Chopin invented the musical class known as the instrumental ballade and made major innovations to the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu and prélude, he was besides the composer of a act of polonaises which borrowed heavily from traditional polish folk music music. It is largely thanks to him that such pieces gained bang-up popularity throughout Europe during the nineteenth hundred. respective polish composers such as Szymanowski drew divine guidance from Chopin ‘s folk-influenced manner. Nowadays the most distinctive family music can be heard in the towns and villages of the mountainous confederacy, particularly in the region surrounding the winter fall back town of Zakopane. [ 445 ]
Poland today has an active music setting, with the jazz and alloy genres being peculiarly popular among the contemporaneous populace. polish jazz musicians such as Krzysztof Komeda created a alone style, which was most celebrated in the 1960s and 1970s and continues to be democratic to this day. Poland has besides become a major venue for large-scale music festivals, foreman among which are the Open’er Festival, Opole Festival and Sopot Festival. [ 447 ]

art

art in Poland has always reflected european trends while maintaining its singular character. The Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, late developed by Jan Matejko, produced monumental portrayals of customs and meaning events in polish history. [ 448 ] other institutions such as the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw were more advanced and focused on both historical and contemporary styles. [ 449 ] Notable art academies include the Kraków School of Art and Fashion Design, Art Academy of Szczecin, University of Fine Arts in Poznań and the Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. possibly the most big and internationally admired polish artist was Tamara de Lempicka, who specialized in the style of Art Deco. [ 450 ] Lempicka was described as “ the beginning womanhood artist to become a hex star. ” [ 451 ] Another celebrated was Caziel, behave Zielenkiewicz, who represented Cubism and Abstraction in France and England. [ 452 ] anterior to the nineteenth hundred only Daniel Schultz and Italian-born Marcello Bacciarelli had the privilege of being recognized overseas. The Young Poland campaign witnessed the birth of modern Polish artwork, and engaged in a capital deal of formal experiment led by Jacek Malczewski, Stanisław Wyspiański, Józef Mehoffer, and a group of polish Impressionists. [ 453 ] Stanisław Witkiewicz was an ardent patron of Realism, its main spokesperson being Józef Chełmoński, while Artur Grottger specialized in Romanticism. Within historically-orientated circles, Henryk Siemiradzki dominated with his monumental Academic Art and ancient Roman theme. [ 454 ]
Interior of the National Museum in Wrocław, which holds one of the largest collections of contemporary art in the state Since the inter-war years, polish art and documentary photography has enjoyed worldwide fame and in the 1960s the polish School of Posters was formed. [ 429 ] Throughout the entire country, many national museum and artwork institutions hold valuable works by celebrated masters. major museums in Poland include the National Museum in Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław, Kraków, and Gdańsk, adenine well as the Museum of John Paul II Collection, and the Wilanów Museum. significant collections are besides held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Wawel Castle and in the Palace on the Isle. Contemporary art galleries include Zachęta, Ujazdów, and MOCAK. [ 455 ] The most signalize paint of Poland is Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo district attorney Vinci, held at the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. Although not polish, the cultivate had a impregnable determine on polish culture and has been much associated with polish identity. [ 456 ]

architecture

polish cities and towns reflect a unharmed spectrum of european architectural styles. Romanesque computer architecture is represented by St. Andrew ‘s Church, Kraków, and St. Mary ‘s Church, Gdańsk, is feature for the Brick Gothic manner found in Poland. Richly decorated attics and arcade loggias are the coarse elements of the polish Renaissance architecture, [ 457 ] [ 458 ] as discernible in the City Hall in Poznań. For some clock time the deep rebirth manner known as idiosyncrasy, most notably in the Bishop ‘s Palace in Kielce, coexisted with the early baroque stylus, typified in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Kraków. [ 459 ]
history has not been kind to Poland ‘s architectural monuments. however, a act of ancient structures have survived : castles, churches, and stately homes, much unique in the regional or european context. Some of them have been painstakingly restored, like Wawel Castle, or completely reconstructed, including the Old Town and Royal Castle of Warsaw and the Old Town of Gdańsk. [ 460 ] The architecture of Gdańsk is by and large of the Hanseatic assortment, a gothic style common among the erstwhile trade cities along the Baltic Sea and in the northerly part of Central Europe. The architectural style of Wrocław is chiefly spokesperson of german architecture since it was for centuries located within the Holy Roman Empire. The centres of Kazimierz Dolny and Sandomierz on the Vistula are good examples of well-preserved medieval towns. Poland ‘s ancient das kapital, Kraków, ranks among the best-preserved Gothic and Renaissance urban complexes in Europe. [ 461 ] The moment half of the seventeenth hundred is marked by baroque architecture. side towers, such as those of Branicki Palace in Białystok, are distinctive for the polish baroque. The authoritative Silesian baroque is represented by the University in Wrocław. The exuberant decorations of the Branicki Palace in Warsaw are feature of the rococo style. The centre of polish classicism was Warsaw under the principle of the last polish king Stanisław II Augustus. [ 462 ] The Palace on the Isle is a chief exemplar of polish neoclassic architecture. Lublin Castle represents the Gothic Revival style in architecture, [ 463 ] while the Izrael Poznański Palace in Łódź is an exercise of eclecticism. [ 464 ]
traditional folk architecture in the villages and small towns scattered across the huge polish countryside was characterized by its extensive function of wood and red brick as primary construct materials, common for Central Europe. [ 465 ] Some of the best continue and oldest structures include ancient stone temples in Silesia and fortified wooden churches across southeast Poland in the Beskids and Bieszczady regions of the Carpathian mountains. [ 466 ] [ 467 ] Numerous examples of worldly structures such as polish manor houses ( dworek ), farmhouses ( chata ), granaries, mills, barns and country hostel ( karczma ) can still be found in some polish regions. however, traditional structure methods faded in the early-mid twentieth century, when Poland ‘s population experienced a demographic shift to urban dwelling aside from the countryside. [ 468 ]

literature

The earliest examples of polish literature date to the twelfth century, [ 469 ] when Poland ‘s official language was Latin, and early published works were predominantly written by foreigners. Gallus Anonymus, a monk of challenge origin, was the beginning chronicler who meticulously described Poland ‘s polish, terminology and territories in Gesta principum Polonorum ( c. 1112–1118 ). [ 470 ] Latin remained the principal instrument of literary formulation in Poland until the eighteenth hundred, when it was replaced in party favor of polish and french. Historically, polish literature concentrated extensively around the themes of true drama and poetic -expressive romanticism than on fiction. Patriotism, spiritualty and aphorisms were overriding and political or social allegories were park moral narratives. [ 471 ] [ 472 ]
The first attested phrase in the polish terminology reads “ Day ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai “ ( “ Let me grind, and you take a rest ” ), reflecting the function of quern-stone in early on Poland. [ 473 ] The phrase was recorded by an abbot in the Latin-based Liber fundationis from 1269 to 1273, which outlined the history of a trappist monastery in the Silesian village of Henryków. The prison term has been included in the UNESCO Memory of World Register. [ 474 ] The oldest extant manuscript of fine prose in Old Polish is the Holy Cross Sermons, and the earliest religious text is the Bible of Queen Sophia. [ 475 ] One of the first print houses was established by Kasper Straube in the 1470s, while Jan Haller was considered the pioneer of commercial print in Poland. Haller ‘s Calendarium cracoviense, an astronomic wall calendar from 1474, is Poland ‘s oldest surviving print. [ 476 ] The custom of extending polish historiography in Latin was subsequently inherited by Vincent Kadłubek, Bishop of Kraków in the thirteenth hundred, and Jan Długosz in the fifteenth century. [ 477 ] This rehearse, however, was abandoned by Jan Kochanowski, who became one of the first polish Renaissance authors to write most of his works in Polish, along with Nicholas Rey. [ 478 ] other writers of the polish Renaissance include Johannes Dantiscus, Andreus Fricius Modrevius, Matthias Sarbievius, Piotr Skarga and Klemens “ Ianicius ” Janicki, who was laureled by the Pope. The leadership figure of the polish Reformation was theologian and writer John Laski, who, with the license of King Edward VI of England, created the European Protestant Congregation of London in 1550. [ 479 ]
Banquet in Nero’s Palace, an illustration from a 1910 print of Quo Vadis, a historical novel written by Henryk Sienkiewicz, an illustration from a 1910 print of, a historical novel written by Nobel Prize laureate During the Baroque era, the Jesuits greatly influenced polish literature and literary techniques, much relying on God and religious matters. [ 480 ] The leading baroque poet was Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, who incorporated Marinism into his publications. Jan Chryzostom Pasek, besides a respected baroque writer, is by and large remembered for his tales and memoirs reflecting sarmatian culture in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. [ 481 ] Subsequently, the polish Enlightenment was headed by Samuel Linde, Hugo Kołłątaj, Izabela Czartoryska and Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. In 1776, Ignacy Krasicki composed the first milestone novel entitled The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom. [ 482 ] Among the best know polish Romantics are the “ Three Bards “ – the three national poets active in the age of extraneous partitions – Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński. [ 483 ] The narrative poem Pan Tadeusz by Mickiewicz is Poland ‘s national epic poem and a compulsory read ( lektura ) in the country ‘s schools. [ 484 ] Joseph Conrad, the son of dramatist Apollo Korzeniowski, came to fame with his English-language novels and stories that are informed with elements of the polish home experience. [ 485 ] [ 486 ] Conrad ‘s Heart of Darkness, Nostromo and Lord Jim are believed to be one of the finest works ever written, placing him among the greatest novelists of all time. [ 487 ] [ 488 ] Modern Polish literature is versatile, with its fantasy genre having been particularly praised. [ 489 ] The philosophical sci-fi novel Solaris is an acclaim example of Stanisław Lem ‘s literary bequest, whereas The Witcher, a illusion series by Andrzej Sapkowski, is a much-celebrated sour of contemporary polish fiction. [ 490 ] In the twentieth century, five polish authors were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature – Henryk Sienkiewicz for Quo Vadis, Władysław Reymont for The Peasants, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska. [ 491 ] [ 492 ] In 2019, polish writer Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2018. [ 493 ]

cuisine

polish cuisine has evolved over the centuries to become highly eclectic due to Poland ‘s history. polish cuisine shares many similarities with early cardinal european cuisines, particularly german and austrian [ 494 ] american samoa well as Jewish, [ 495 ] French, Italian and Turkish culinary traditions. [ 496 ] Polish-styled cook in other cultures is often referred to as cuisine à la polonaise. [ 497 ] polish dishes are normally full-bodied in meat, particularly pork barrel, chicken and beef ( depending on the region ), winter vegetables ( sauerkraut pilfer in bigos ), and spices. [ 498 ] It is besides feature in its use of assorted kinds of noodles, the most luminary of which are kluski, ampere well as cereals such as kasha ( from the polish discussion kasza ) [ 499 ] and a variety of breads like the world-renowned bagel. polish cuisine is hearty and uses a bunch of cream and eggs. gay meals such as the meatless Christmas Eve dinner ( Wigilia ) or Easter breakfast could take days to prepare in their entirety. [ 500 ]
The independent class normally includes a serve of kernel, such as knock, chicken, or kotlet schabowy ( breaded pork barrel cutlet ), vegetables, side dishes and salads, including surówka [ suˈrufka ] – shredded solution vegetables with lemon and boodle ( carrot, celeriac, seared beet ) or sauerkraut ( polish : kapusta kiszona, pronounced [ kaˈpusta kʲiˈʂɔna ] ). The side dishes are normally potatoes, rice or grain. Meals conclude with a dessert such as sernik ( cheesecake ), makowiec ( poppy seed pastry ), or napoleonka ( cream proto-indo european ). [ 501 ] The polish national dishes are bigos [ ˈbiɡɔs ] ; pierogi [ pʲɛˈrɔɡʲi ] ; kielbasa ; kotlet schabowy [ ˈkɔtlɛt sxaˈbɔvɨ ] breaded cutlet ; gołąbki [ ɡɔˈwɔ̃pkʲi ] pilfer rolls ; zrazy [ ˈzrazɨ ] roulade ; pieczeń roast [ ˈpʲɛt͡ʂɛɲ ] ; sour cucumber soup ( zupa ogórkowa, pronounced [ ˈzupa ɔɡurˈkɔva ] ) ; mushroom soup, ( zupa grzybowa, [ ˈzupa ɡʐɨˈbɔva ] quite different from the north american cream of mushroom ) ; zupa pomidorowa tomato soup pronounced [ ˈzupa pɔmidɔˈrɔva ] ; [ 502 ] rosół [ ˈrɔɕuw ] kind of kernel broth ; żurek [ ˈʐurɛk ] sour rye soup ; flaki [ ˈflakʲi ] folderol soup ; barszcz [ barʂt͡ʂ ] and chłodnik [ ˈxwɔdɲik ] among others. [ 503 ] traditional alcoholic beverages include honey mead, widespread since the thirteenth century, beer, wine and vodka ( old polish names include okowita and gorzała ). [ 504 ] The worldly concern ‘s first written citation of vodka originates from Poland. [ 505 ] The most popular alcoholic drinks at introduce are beer and wine which took over from vodka more popular in the years 1980–1998. [ 506 ] tea remains common in polish club since the nineteenth century, whilst chocolate is drunk widely since the eighteenth hundred. [ 507 ] early frequently consumed beverages include assorted mineral waters and juices, gentle drinks popularized by the fast-food chains since the late twentieth hundred, angstrom well as buttermilk, soured milk and kefir. [ 508 ]

fashion and design

The finical invest styles in Poland evolved with each hundred. In the 1600s high-class noblemen and magnates developed a strong sympathy for Orientalism, which was besides common in other parts of Europe and became known as Sarmatism. [ 509 ] The overdress mediated between western and Ottoman styles [ 509 ] and outfits included a żupan, delia, kontusz, pascal, cosmetic karabela swords and less often turbans brought by alien merchants. The period of polish Sarmatism finally faded in the wake up of the eighteenth hundred. The polish national dress a well as the fashion and etiquette of Poland besides reached the imperial woo at Versailles in the 1700s. french dresses inspired by polish attire were called à la polonaise, meaning “ Polish-styled ”. The most celebrated model is the robe à la polonaise, a woman ‘s garment with clothe and swagged overskirt, worn over an petticoat or petticoat. [ 510 ] Another luminary exercise is the Witzchoura, a long blanket with collar and hood, which was possibly introduced by Napoleon ‘s polish mistress Maria Walewska. The setting of influence besides entailed furniture ; rococo polish beds with canopies became commonplace in french palaces during the eighteenth century. [ 511 ]
Reserved is Poland’s most successful clothing store chain, operating in over 20 countries several polish designers and stylists left a lifelong bequest of beauty inventions and cosmetics, most luminary being Maksymilian Faktorowicz and Helena Rubinstein. Faktorowicz created a argumentation of cosmetics company in California known as Max Factor and coined the term “ makeup ” based on the verb phrase “ to make up ” one ‘s font, nowadays wide used as an alternate for describing cosmetics. [ 512 ] Faktorowicz besides raised to fame by inventing modern eyelash extensions and by providing services to Hollywood artists. [ 513 ] [ 514 ] As of 2020, Poland possesses the fifth-largest cosmetic marketplace in Europe. [ 515 ] [ 516 ] Founded in 1983, Inglot Cosmetics is the country ‘s largest beauty products manufacturer and retailer active in 700 locations global, including retail salons in New York City, London, Milan, Dubai and Las Vegas. [ 517 ] [ 518 ] Established in 1999, the retail storehouse Reserved is Poland ‘s most successful clothing store chain, operating over 1,700 retail shops in 19 countries. [ 519 ] [ 520 ] [ 521 ] Internationally successful models from Poland include Anja Rubik, Joanna Krupa, Jac Jagaciak, Kasia Struss, Małgosia Bela, and Magdalena Frąckowiak. [ 522 ]

film

The history of polish film is deoxyadenosine monophosphate long as the history of filming itself. Over the decades, Poland has produced outstanding directors, film producers, cartoonists and actors that achieved world fame, specially in Hollywood. furthermore, polish inventors played an important role in the development of world filming and contemporary television receiver. Among the most celebrated directors and producers, who worked in Poland vitamin a well as abroad are Roman Polański, Andrzej Wajda, Samuel Goldwyn, the Warner brothers ( Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack ), Max Fleischer, Lee Strasberg, Agnieszka Holland and Krzysztof Kieślowski. [ 523 ] In the nineteenth century, throughout partitioned Poland, numerous amateur inventors, such as Kazimierz Prószyński, were eager to construct a film projector. In 1894, Prószyński was successful in creating a Pleograph, one of the first cameras in the worldly concern. The invention, which took photograph and project pictures, was built before the Lumière brothers lodged their patent. [ 524 ] He besides patented an Aeroscope, the first successful hand-held operated film television camera. In 1897, Jan Szczepanik, obtained a british patent for his Telectroscope. This prototype of television receiver could easily transmit visualize and sound, thus allowing a live outside see. [ 524 ] polish film developed quickly in the interwar period. The most celebrated asterisk of the silent film earned run average was polish actress Pola Negri. During this time, the yiddish film besides evolved in Poland. Films in the yiddish speech with jewish themes, such as The Dybbuk ( 1937 ), played an authoritative part in pre-war polish filming. In 1945 the government established ‘ Film Polski ‘, a state-run film production and distribution constitution, with director Aleksander Ford as the head of the company. Ford ‘s Knights of the Teutonic Order ( 1960 ) was viewed by millions of people in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and France. [ 525 ] This achiever was followed by the historic films of Jerzy Hoffman and Andrzej Wajda. Wajda ‘s 1975 film The Promised Land was nominated at the 48th Academy Awards. [ 526 ] In 2015, Ida by Paweł Pawlikowski won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. [ 527 ] In 2019, Pawlikowski received an Academy Award for Best Director nominating speech for his historic drama Cold War. other long-familiar polish Oscar-winning productions include The Pianist ( 2002 ) by Roman Polański. [ 528 ]

Media

Headquarters of the publicly funded home television receiver network TVP in Warsaw Poland has a number of major media outlets, head among which are the national television channels. TVP is Poland ‘s public broadcast pot ; about a one-third of its income comes from a broadcast liquidator license, while the rest is made through tax income from commercials and sponsorships. State television operates two mainstream channels, TVP 1 and TVP 2, vitamin a well as regional programs for each of the nation ‘s 16 voivodeships ( as TVP 3 ). In summation to these cosmopolitan channels, TVP runs a number of genre-specific programmes such as TVP Sport, TVP Historia, TVP Kultura, TVP Rozrywka, TVP Seriale and TVP Polonia, the latter is a state-run channel dedicated to the infection of polish language television for the polish diaspora. Poland has several 24-hour newsworthiness channels such as Polsat News, TVP Info and TVN 24. [ 529 ] Poland besides possesses a variety show of free-to-air television channels, chiefly TVN, Polsat and TV4 .
In Poland, there are besides day by day newspapers like Gazeta Wyborcza ( “ Electoral Gazette ” ), Rzeczpospolita ( “ The Republic ” ) and Gazeta Polska Codziennie ( “ polish Daily Newspaper ” ) which provide traditional public opinion and news program, and tabloids such as Fakt and Super Express. Weeklies include Tygodnik Angora, W Sieci, Polityka, Wprost, Newsweek Polska, Gość Niedzielny and Gazeta Polska. [ 530 ] Poland has besides emerged as a major hub for video plot developers in Europe, with the nation now being home to hundreds of studios. Among the most successful ones are CD Projekt, Techland, CI Games and People Can Fly. [ 531 ] Some of the most popular television games developed in Poland include The Witcher trilogy. [ 532 ] [ 533 ] Katowice hosts Intel Extreme Masters, one of the biggest eSports events in the universe. [ 534 ]

Sports

Volleyball and Association football are among the nation ‘s most popular sports, with a rich history of international competitions. [ 535 ] [ 536 ] Track and field, basketball, handball, box, MMA, motorcycle speedway, ski leap out, cross-country ski, ice ice hockey, tennis, fencing, swim, and weightlifting are other popular sports. The golden earned run average of football in Poland occurred throughout the 1970s and went on until the early 1980s when the polish national football team achieved their best results in any FIFA World Cup competitions finishing 3rd set in the 1974 and the 1982 tournaments. The team won a aureate decoration in football at the 1972 Summer Olympics and two silver medals, in 1976 and in 1992. In 2012, Poland co-hosted the UEFA European Football Championship. [ 537 ]
Motorcycle speedway (żużel) racing is a very popular motorsport in Poland.[538] ) rush is a very popular motorsport in Poland. As of May 2021, the polish men ‘s national volleyball team is ranked as 2nd in the world. [ 539 ] Volleyball team won a aureate decoration in Olympic 1976 Montreal and three gold medals in FIVB World Championship 1974, 2014 and 2018. [ 540 ] [ 541 ] Mariusz Pudzianowski is a highly successful strongman rival and has won more World ‘s Strongest man titles than any other rival in the universe, winning the consequence in 2008 for the fifth time. [ 542 ] Poland has made a classifiable notice in motorcycle speedway racing thanks to Tomasz Gollob and Bartosz Zmarzlik, highly successful polish riders. The top Ekstraliga division has one of the highest average attendances for any sport in Poland. The national speedway team of Poland is one of the major teams in international speedway. [ 543 ] Poles made significant achievements in mountaineer, in particular, in the Himalayas and the winter ascending of the eight-thousanders. polish mountains are one of the tourist attractions of the state. Hiking, climbing, skiing and batch bicycle and attract numerous tourists every year from all over the populace. [ 332 ] Water sports are the most popular summer diversion activities, with ample locations for fish, canoeing, kayaking, sailing and windsurfing specially in the northern regions of the area. [ 544 ]

See besides

Notes

1. ^ many declared more than one heathen or national identity. The percentages of heathen Poles and minorities depend on how they are counted. 94.83 % declared entirely polish identity, 96.88 % declare Polish as their first identity and 97.10 % as either inaugural or second identity. Around 98 % declared some sort of Polish as their first identity .

References

• Materski, Wojciech; Szarota, Tomasz (2009). “Przedmowa” [Preface]. Polska 1939–1945. Straty Osobowe i Ofiary Represji pod Dwiema Okupacjami [Human Losses and Victims of Repressions under Two Occupations] (in Polish). Warsaw: IPN. ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012 .

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