Information: A country.

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country located in Central Europe. It is surrounded by the and the Baltic Sea and the Kalingrad Oblast of Russia to the north, Lithuania to the northeast, Belarus to the east, the Ukraine to the southeast, Slovakia to the south, Czechia to the southwest, and Germany to the west.

Poland is a developed market and regional power and has one of the most dynamic economies in the European Union.

During World War I, all the Allies agreed on the reconstitution of Poland. Shortly after the armistice with Germany in November 1918, Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic.

The formal beginning of World War II was marked by the Nazi German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, followed by the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17. On September 28, 1939 Warsaw capitulated. Poland was split into two zones, one occupied by Nazi Germany, the other fell under the control of the Soviet Union. In 1939 and 1941, the Soviets deported hundreds of thousands of Poles to distant parts of the Soviet Union. The domestic underground resistance movement, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army), fought against German occupation. The wartime resistance movement in Poland was one of the three largest resistance movements of the entire war. German forces under direct order from Adolf Hitler set up six extermination camps, all of which operated in the heart of Poland. They included Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz. The Germans transported the condemned Jews from the Third Reich and across occupied Europe to murder them in the death camps set up in the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. At the war's conclusion, in 1945 Poland's borders were shifted westwards, resulting in considerable territorial losses.

The People's Republic of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa) was officially proclaimed in 1952. in the early 1990s the country transformed its socialist-style planned economy into a market economy.

National Dances: Krakowiak, Kujawiak, Mazur, Oberek, Polonaise

Location: Europe

Language: Polish

Religion: Roman Catholic Christian