Poland

Poland (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country in Central Europe. more...

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It is bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, and the Baltic Sea, Lithuania, and Russia (in the form of the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave) to the north. It also shares a maritime border with Denmark and Sweden. The total land area of Poland is about 312,684 sq km (120,728 sq mi) making it the 69th largest country in the world with population over 38.5 million people concentrated mainly in large cities, including the first capital of Poland, Cracow (Polish: Kraków), and present capital, Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa).

The first Polish state was born in 966. Poland became a kingdom in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by uniting to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth collapsed in 1795, and the Poles were without a state for 123 years. Poland regained its independence in 1918 after World War I but lost it again in World War II, emerging several years later as a communist country within the Eastern Bloc under control of the former Soviet Union. In 1989 it threw off the communist yoke and became what is informally known as the "Third Polish Republic". Today, as the 6th most populated member state of the European Union, Poland is a liberal democracy made up of sixteen voivodeships (Polish: województwo). Poland is also a member of NATO, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization.

Poland is the birthplace of many world famous people, including Pope John Paul II (Polish: Papież Jan Paweł II), Marie Skłodowska Curie (Polish: Maria Skłodowska-Curie), Frederic Chopin (Polish: Fryderyk Chopin), Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik) , and many more.

History

Poland began to form into a recognizable unitary and territorial entity around the middle of the 10th century under the Piast dynasty. Poland's first historically documented ruler, Mieszko I, was baptized in 966, adopting Catholic Christianity as the nation's new official religion, to which the bulk of the population converted in the course of the next century. In the 12th century Poland fragmented into several smaller states, which were later ravaged by the Mongol armies of the Golden Horde in 1241, 1259 and 1287. In 1320 Władysław I became the King of a reunified Poland. His son, Casimir III, repaired the Polish economy, constructed new castles, and won the war against the Ruthenian duchy (Lviv (Lwów) became a Polish City).

Read more at Wikipedia.org