Poland

Poland (Polish: Polska [ˈpɔlska] ), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the

west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north.

The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.

Many historians trace the establishment of a Polish state to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day

Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a longstanding political association with the Grand

Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin, forming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Drawing of the Battle of

Grunwald against the German

Order of Teutonic Knights, 15 July

1410.

The Commonwealth gradually ceased to exist in the years 1772–1795, when the Polish territory was partitioned among Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence (as the Second Polish Republic) at the end of

World War I, in 1918.

Stanisław II August, the last King of Poland acceded to the throne in 1764, reigning until his abdication on 25 November 1795.

Chief of State Marshal Józef Piłsudski was the nation's premiere

statesman between 1918 until his death on 12 May 1935.

Warsaw – the capital city and the biggest city of Poland. Its population is estimated at 1.740 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of

2.666 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 9th most populous capital city in the European Union. Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland when King Sigismund III Vasa moved his court from Kraków to Warsaw

in 1596.

Panorama of Warsaw by night

After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Warsaw was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, the city

became the official capital of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a puppet state of the First French Empire created by Napoleon Bonaparte. With accordance to the decision of the Congress of Vienna, Warsaw in 1815 was annexed by the Russian Empire and became part of the "Congress Kingdom". Only in 1918 it regained independence from the foreign rule and emerged as a new capital of the independent Republic of Poland. Along with the German invasion in

1939, the massacre of the Jewish population and deportations to concentration camps led to the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 and to

a major and devastating Warsaw Uprising between August and October 1944. For this Warsaw gained the title of the "phoenix city" because it has survived so many wars, conflicts and invasions throughout its long history. Most notably, the city had to be painstakingly rebuilt after the extensive

damage it suffered in World War II, during which 85% of its buildings were destroyed.

Sea of rubble – over eight out of every ten buildings in Warsaw were destroyed by the end of the Second World War. In

left centre can be seen ruins of Old Town Market Square.

Historic centre of Warsaw Łazienki Palace, also referred to as the Palace on the Water

Presidential Palace, the seat of the Polish president.

The River Vistula (Wisła) is the longest river of Poland - 1,047 kilometres (651 miles) long.

Tatra Mountains in southern Poland - average 2,000 metres high, the highest mountain

range in Poland.

Rysy – the highest mountain in Poland 2499 m above the sea

level.

Masurian Lake DistrictThe Masurian Lake District or Masurian Lakeland (Polish: Pojezierze Mazurskie) is a lake district in northeastern

Poland within the geographical region of Masuria. It contains more than 2,000 lakes. The district had been elected as one of the 28 finalists of the New7Wonders of Nature.

Śniardwy is a lake in the Masurian Lake District of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It is the largest lake in Poland with an area of 113.8

square kilometres (43.9 sq mi). It is 22.1 kilometres long and 13.4 kilometres wide. The maximum depth is 23 metres . There are eight islands on the

Śniardwy lake.

Hańcza is a lake in north-east Poland. It is 311.4 ha large, 4.5 km long and 1.2 km wide. It is the deepest lake in

Poland with maximum depth of 108.5 m.

Baltic SeaBaltic beaches of the Gdańsk Bay are one of Poland's most popular tourist destinations.

The Polish Baltic coast is

approximately 528 kilometres

long and extends from

Wolin island in the west to

Krynica Morska in the east.

Kraków (Polish pronunciation: [ˈkrakuf]) also Cracow, or Krakow, UK English /ˈkrækɒv/) is the second largest (population of 760,700) and one of the

oldest cities in Poland. It was the capital of Poland from 1038 to 1569.

Łódź (Polish pronunciation: [wutZɕ]; English pronunciation: /luːdʒ/ or /lɒdz/) is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, it has a

population of 760,700.

Famous Polish peopleMikołaj

Kopernik 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; first published in 1543.

Famous Polish peopleFrédéric Chopin

(/ˈʃoʊpæn), (1810 – 1849), born

Fryderyk Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote primarily for the

solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius

was based on a professional technique that was without

equal in his generation."

Famous Polish peopleMaria Skłodowska-Curie 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a

Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity.

She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win twice in multiple sciences (in

1903 in physics, in 1911 in chemistry), and was part of the Curie

family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to

become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own

merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Famous Polish peopleJohn Paul II (Karol

Wojtyła, 1920-2005) was the first Pole and

Slav to become a Roman Catholic Pope, and is

considered to have been a great promoter of

Poland around the world. He held the Pope

position between 1978-2005.

Szkoła Podstawowa nr 9Dzierżoniów, Poland

eTwinning project:

May 2015

Resources:http://pl.wikipedia.orghttp://en.wikipedia.org