Poland is a Slavic Catholic country located between Russia and Germany. She survived several decades of oblivion and was always forced to fight for her existence.
1. The originality of the landscape
Poland boasts a variety of terrain. The monotony of the plains in the north of the country is disturbed by the hills of Pomerania and Masuria. The low coast of the Baltic Sea is covered with peat bogs and dunes. In the south of the country, the landscapes are more impressive: plateaus, hills, and on the borders with Slovakia and the Czech Republic - the Sudeten Mountains and the spurs of the Carpathians.
2. The coal empire
Thanks to the deposits of coal on the Silesian plateaus, a metallurgical industry was born in Poland and numerous cities grew. The country's coal reserves will last for several hundred years. True, in recent years Poland has been experiencing problems with its production.
3. Main rivers
Vistula and Oder are two large rivers with many tributaries. They feed the lands of Poland and flow into the Baltic Sea. Three port cities grew up at their mouths: Gdansk and Gdynia on the Vistula and Shetsin on the Oder.
4. Polish kingdom
In the first millennium, Slavic tribes from the west settled on the Polish plain. In the 10th century, their leader, Meshko the First, adopted the Christian faith. The Polish kingdom emerged in difficult conditions: from the west, Germany was pressing on its borders, and the Tatar-Mongols were advancing from the east. However, in the 14th century, it strengthened its position.
5. Period of prosperity
In the 14th century, during the great Jagiellonian dynasty for Poland, which entered into an alliance with Lithuania in 1386, the so-called golden age began. It was a time of prosperity that lasted until the early 16th century. At the same time, science developed rapidly in Poland. Thus, the University of Krakow was founded, which soon became famous. Within its walls, Nicolaus Copernicus himself taught, the author of the heliocentric theory, which became a revolution in astronomy.
6. Decline time
In the 17th century, the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom fell into decay. It was divided by Austria, Russia and Prussia. Three sections (1772, 1793 and 1795) erased Poland from the world map. It became independent after the First World War, but already in 1939 it was again divided by Nazi Germany and the USSR, which at first agreed among themselves, but then became enemies.
7. "Resurrection"
In 1945, Poland "resurrected" on a new territory: it ceded the eastern lands to the USSR, a significant part of the population of which were Belarusians and Ukrainians, but expanded to the west and north at the expense of the German regions (Silesia and Eastern Pomerania). Their indigenous inhabitants migrated en masse, and new lands were settled by Poles from the regions annexed to the USSR.
8. Ethnic composition
Unlike multinational Russia, Poland is ethnically homogeneous. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Slovaks, Lithuanians and Germans live on its territory, but their number is small.
