Poland

Poland: population and cities

Population

Population

According to Countryaah website, Poland has about 38.5 million residents.

Ethnic composition

98.7% of the citizens are of Polish descent. 0.6% are Ukrainians and 0.7% belong to other nationalities (Germans, Russians, Belarusians).

Religion

95% of the population are Roman Catholics, 1.3% are Polish Orthodox, 0.3% are Protestants, 0.1% are Old Catholics. There is also a minority of around 50,000 Jews and Muslims.

National languages

Polish; Minority languages: including German, Ukrainian, Belarusian

Capital, other cities

The capital of Poland is Warsaw, with a population of 1.7 million.

Other cities are:

• Szczecin/Stettin with around 420,000 residents
• Kraków/Krakow with approx. 750,000 residents
• Gdansk/Danzig with around 550,000 residents
• Poznan/Posen with around 580,000 residents
• Wroclaw/Breslau with around 471,000 residents

Poland: geography, map

Defined by DigoPaul, Poland covers a total area of 312,685 km². Thereof:

• Forest

  Around 29% of the country is forested.

• Meadow and pasture land

  Around 13% of the land is used as meadow or pasture land.

• Arable land and fields

  Around 47% of the country is used as arable land or fields, especially for growing cereals, corn, potatoes, sugar beet and rapeseed.

• Mountains

  The Giant Mountains and the High Tatras.

Poland has a common border with a total of six countries that are 3,582 km long:

• Russian Federation with a length of around 210 km
• Republic of Lithuania with a length of around 103 km
• Republic of Belarus with a length of around 416 km
• Ukraine with a length of around 529 km
• Slovak Republic with a length of around 539 km
• Czech Republic with a length of around 790 km
• Federal Republic of Germany with a length of around 467 km

The coast to the Baltic Sea has a length of around 530 km.

Tidal range

The Baltic Sea is almost free of tides. The tidal range in the Baltic Sea is in the centimeter range. In Gdansk, the mean tidal range is only around 0.2 to 0.4 m.

For detailed explanations of ebb and flow, see Tides, Ebb and Flow.

Compare

The world's highest tidal range is found in the Bay of Fundy in Canada. There it is up to 16 m, with spring tide even over 20 m. The Bay of Fundy is located on the Atlantic between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which is called Nova Scotia in German and whose capital is Halifax. On the German North Sea coast it varies between 1 m and 3 m. In the western Baltic Sea, on the other hand, the tidal range is only 0.3 m, while it is barely noticeable in the eastern Baltic Sea.

Longitude and latitude

Poland extends over the following geographical latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and geographical longitude (abbreviation Δλ):

You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.

Legal time

For Poland, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET). A minus sign means that it is earlier there, a plus sign that it is later than CET:

Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time.

Highest level of the sun in Warsaw

Warsaw lies at a north latitude of around φ = 52 °.

If the sun is at the tropic, i.e. at δ = 23.5 °, summer will start in Warsaw on June 21. Then, for the highest position of the sun at noon, according to Eq. 1 (see position of the sun):

52 ° = (90 ° - h) + 23.5 °

so:

At 61.5 °, the sun in Warsaw has the highest level of the entire year above the horizon (exactly: Kimm)

Mountains

Meeraugspitze (Rysy)

The highest mountain in the country is the Meeraugspitze (Rysy) in the High Tatras with a height of 2,499 m.

Schneekoppe (Sniezka)

Another high mountain is the Schneekoppe (Sniezka) in the Giant Mountains with a height of 1,602 m. The border between Poland and the Czech Republic runs at its summit. The source of the Elbe is on the Czech side of the Schneekoppe.

Or and Vistula

Or

The Oder is the second longest river in Poland with a length of around 866 km, 742 km of which is in Poland. It rises in the Czech Republic at Fidlův Kopec (Lieselberg) in the Oder Mountains. Behind the village of Ostrava (Ostrau) in the Czech Republic, it crosses the border from the Czech Republic to Poland. The cities of Opole (Oppeln), Wrocław (Breslau), Frankfurt/Oder (German) - Słubice (Polish), Szczecin (Stettin) lie on the Oder up to the confluence with the Stettiner Haff. The Warta is its longest tributary. Other tributaries are the Lausitzer Neisse and the Glatzer Neisse.

Downstream of the mouth of the Lusatian Neisse near Neißemünde in the district of Ratzdorf - approx. 13 km north of Guben in Brandenburg - the Oder to north of Schwedt/Oder forms the border between Poland and Germany over a length of around km. It flows into the Szczecin Lagoon near Stettin, which is connected to the Baltic Sea by three inlets. One of the three arms is the Świnoujście, at whose exit to the Baltic Sea lies the Polish port city Świnoujście (Świnoujście). The Swine lies between Usedom and Wolin (Wollin). The other two arms are the approx. 20 km long Peenestrom between Germany and the island of Usedom and the approx. 35 km long Dziwna (Dievenow), which lies between the Polish mainland and Wolin.

Vistula

The longest river in the country is the Vistula with a length of 1,047 km. The Vistula rises in the Silesian Beskids at the 1,214 m high Barania (1,214 m) from two streams, the Czarna Wisełka and the Biała Wisełka, both of which flow into the Zbiornik Czerniański reservoir after a few kilometers. From the Goczałkowice reservoir, the river is navigable up to the mouth. The Vistula flows through the cities of Bydgoszcz, Krakow, Toruń and Warsaw and flows into the Baltic Sea at Danzig over the Danzig Bay.

More rivers

Warthe At

808 in length, the Warta (Warta) is the longest tributary of the Oder and almost as long as it. It rises in the Kraków-Czestochowa Jura, near the city of Zawiercie (Warthenau), about km north of Kraków in Poland. The famous Polish pilgrimage site of Częstochowa (Czestochowa) and (Poznan) are located on the river. The Warta flows into the Oder at "Kostrzyn nad Odrą" (Küstrin) in Poland.

Lausitzer Neisse

The Lausitzer Neisse - also known as the Görlitzer Neisse - is a 255 km long tributary of the Oder. It rises in the Czech Republic in the southern Jizera Mountains on the northern edge of the 869 m high Černá Studnice in the Czech Republic. The river length in Poland is around 200 km. It flows into the Oder near Neißemünde in the Ratzdorf district. The most famous town on the river is certainly Görlitz.

Glatzer Neisse

The 195 km long Glatzer Neisse is one of the tributaries of the Oder, into which it flows near the village of Rybna (Riebnig) southeast of Brzeg - between Opole and Breslau. The river has its source on the border between Poland and the Czech Republic near Thanndorf (Jodłów) in the Kłodzko Snow Mountains, which belong to the Sudetes.

Lakes

Spirdingsee

The largest lake is the Spirdingsee with an area of about 113 km².

Mauersee

The second largest lake is the Mauersee with an area of over 100 km².

Masuria

There are also around 10,000 lakes in Poland with an area of more than one hectare. The Masurian lakes in the east of the country are an outstanding scenic region .

Islands

Poland has two large islands in the Baltic Sea, in addition to a number of smaller, partly uninhabited ones, for example in the Szczecin Lagoon.

Usedom

Usedom belongs to Poland and Germany. The total area of the island is 445 km², of which 72 km² belong to Poland.

Wolin

Wolin (German: Wollin) is located in front of the Stettiner Haff and has an area of around 265 km²

Fresh lagoon, fresh spit

Fresh Lagoon

The Fresh Lagoon is part of Poland and the Russian Kalinigrad Oblast. The border between Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast runs not quite in the middle of the Fresh Lagoon. The Fresh Lagoon is part of the Baltic Sea and is bordered by the Fresh Spit - a relatively narrow tongue of land about 70 km long and a few hundred meters wide (maximum 1.8 km) - by the Gdańsk Bay and thus by the open Baltic Sea Cut. The transition to the Gdańsk Bay is near Baltiysk - the former Pillau in the Russian Oblast of Kaliningrad.

Fresh Spit

The Fresh Spit is an approx. 70 km long headland that separates the Fresh Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. The maximum width of the Fresh Spit is around 1.8 km. The transition from the Fresh Lagoon to the Gdańsk Bay lies near Baltiysk - the former Pillau in the Kaliningrad Oblast, which is part of Russia. The border with Kaliningrad Oblast is at a northern latitude of around 54 ° 25`. Fresh lagoon and fresh spit begin a little less than 35 km east of Gdansk

Gdańsk Bay, Szczecin Lagoon

Gdańsk Bay

The Gdańsk Bay is a bay in the Baltic Sea that merges into the "actual" Baltic Sea in the northeast. Significant or well-known cities on the bay are Danzig (Gdańsk), Gotenhafen (Gdynia). and the seaside resort of Sopot. It is bounded in the east by the steep coast of the Samland and in the south by the Fresh Spit. In the northwest is the approx. 35 km long Hela peninsula, through which part of the Gdańsk Bay is separated from the Baltic Sea. The maximum water depth of the bay is around 100 m.

The bay is unfortunately not only known for the beautiful Gdansk - the city of Günther Grass - but also has a bitter past. The Second World War began here when the German liner Schleswig-Holstein, which was visiting the bay here, opened fire on the Westerplatte near Danzig in the early morning hours of September 1, 1939.

Wilhelm Gustloff

And one of the most momentous ship accidents began here in Gotenhafen. On January 30, 1945 around 1:10 p.m., the "Wilhelm Gustloff" left the port of Gotenhafen with around 10,300 refugees - including many women and children as well as around 1,500 members of the Navy - who were to be brought from here to Kiel.

On board were Friedrich Petersen three other captains on board. Petersen prevailed against the advice of the military commander, Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Zahn, with his proposal to take the deep water route, which was faster but also more endangered by submarines. But what nobody knew: In front of the bay was a Soviet submarine waiting for ships to leave. At 21:16, four topedos were fired from the submarine, three of which hit the Gustloff. After about 1 hour she sank in the freezing cold Baltic Sea. Of the refugees on the Gustloff, only about 1,250 were rescued by the naval ships hurrying to help

Goya

The Goya suffered a similar fate. She was part of a convoy that brought wounded soldiers, refugees and a copanie soldiers from the Eastern Front to Swinoujscie and according to an order that was later changed to Copenhagen. The convoy left the port of the Hela peninsula at around 7:00 p.m. on 1945. And at 11:52 p.m. the ship was hit by two torpedoes from a Soviet submarine. The ship she sank within a few minutes in the Baltic Sea, which was only three degrees cold. Of the approx. 7000 people on board, only 183 could be rescued.

Stettiner Haff

The Stettiner Haff, also known as the Oder and Pommersches Haff, is located at the confluence of the Oder and Peene rivers. The Polish-German state border has been running through the lagoon since 1945, with the Polish part being called the Großes Haff. A few cliffs, but a lot of free and flat reed areas determine this part of the Szczecin Lagoon.

The Baltic Sea

Poland has a coastline of around 530 km to the Baltic Sea. Important and well-known cities such as Gdansk and Stettin are located on the Baltic Sea. The Oder - via the Stettiner Haff - and the Vistula flow into the Baltic Sea.