Interesting facts about Poland

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Land & Heritage

• Poland has one of the most diverse environments in Europe, including forests, mountains, lakes, beaches, sand dunes, wetlands, and even Central Europe's only desert, Pustynia Błędowska. Most of the country is flat, with an average elevation of 173 meters.
• Poland is home to the world's largest castle by land area, the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork, covering approximately 21 hectares.
• The 800-year-old Wieliczka Salt Mine features chambers, sculptures, chandeliers, and an entire chapel carved from rock salt 135 metres below ground.
• Poland is home to approximately 25% of the world's white stork population, with these birds nesting throughout the country from April to August.
• The endangered European bison (wisent), Europe's heaviest land animal weighing over 600kg on average, can be found roaming in Poland's Białowieża Primeval Forest.
• The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw houses dozens of cats that help combat mice, along with kestrels on the upper floors and a living bee apiary on the sixth floor.
• Poland is the 6th most populous and the 6th largest of the European Union's 27 member states.

Society & Culture

• Stoicism is considered a common trait among Polish people, who often maintain composure whilst facing adversity without complaint.
• In Poland, everyone has a special holiday for their name, called "Name Day," which is often celebrated similarly to birthdays with gifts of flowers or alcohol.
• The Pol'and'Rock Festival (formerly known as Woodstock Festival) is the largest open-air festival in Europe and the largest free open-air festival in the world, with average attendance exceeding 600,000 people.
• Polish people marry on average at age 25-27, younger than any other country in the European Union.
• Polish people have the second largest households in the European Union after Romania.
• According to a 2007 UNICEF report on child well-being in rich countries, Poland is the second best of the 25 OECD countries surveyed in terms of "behaviours and risks" (healthy lifestyle, lack of violence), and third best for educational well-being. The same reports also finds that Poland has the lowest pecentage overweight young people (7.1%) and the lowest percentage of teenagers under 15 who had had sexual intercourse (15.1%). However, Poland also had the highest number of young people aspiring to low skilled work (17.1%).

Economy

• Poland was the only country in Europe to avoid recession during the 2008-2010 financial crisis.
• The Polish economy has experienced uninterrupted positive GDP growth since 1992, with the exception of 2020 during the pandemic.
• Since joining the European Union in 2004, Poland has seen its GDP per capita more than double within 20 years.
• Poland's GDP has increased seven-fold since 1990, demonstrating extraordinary long-term growth.
• In the period from 1989 to 2018, Poland's GDP increased by 826.96%, which was the best economic growth result in Europe.
• Poland has a large domestic consumer market comprising 61% of GDP, exceeding the EU average and more reminiscent of the U.S. economy.
• Poland has evolved from a country of emigration to become one of Europe's top destinations for foreign workers, issuing more first residence permits than any other EU country for seven consecutive years.
• The country currently hosts 1.13 million foreign workers, comprising almost 7% of all registrants on Poland's social insurance system.
• Poland has welcomed approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians following Russia's 2022 invasion, with roughly 70% actively participating in the country's labour market.
• Poland's economic reforms implemented after the fall of communism have helped transform it into one of Europe's economic powerhouses.
• In 2018, Poland was promoted from emerging to developed-market status by index compiler FTSE Russell, thus placing it ahead of most former Soviet-block economies, as well as of Greece.

History

• In ancient times, what is now Poland was inhabited by a multitude of ethnic groups, including various Celtic (in west-central and southern Poland), Slavic (in the centre and south-east), Baltic (in the north-east) and Germanic (in the west and south-west) tribes.
• The country's first historically documented ruler was Mieszko I (c. 935-992), Duke of Polans (a territory roughly equivalent to modern Poland).
• Vodka is believed to have originated in Poland, with the first written record using the word "wódka" found in Polish court documents from 1405.
• In 1791, Poland-Lithuania was the second country in the world to adopt a written constitution, following the United States, and it was the first written constitution in Europe (four months before France).
• Warsaw was almost completely destroyed during World War II and was meticulously rebuilt using detailed paintings by Bernardo Bellotto.
• One of Europe's oldest restaurants, Piwnica Świdnicka in Wrocław, was founded in 1273 and still operates today.
• Poland has one of the world's first upside-down houses, built in the village of Szymbark to symbolise how Communist rule turned life upside down in Poland.
• Stanislaw Leszczynski (1677-1766), King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1704-1709 and 1733-1736), was the father-in-law of Louis XV of France. He was became (the last) Duke of Lorraine after losing the throne of Poland. He gave his name to a World Heritage city square in Nancy, the then capital of the Duchy of Lorraine.
• One of Napoleon I's most famous lovers was Marie Walewska (1786-1817), a Polish countess who influenced the Emperor to create the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1813).
• The last independent King of Poland abdicated in 1795. The core of the country became the Grand Duchy of Warsaw under the protection of Napoleon I. Between 1815 and 1918, Poland ceased to exist as a politcal entity, and was divided between Russia, Prussia (then Germany), and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• In 1939, Poland had the largest Jewish community in Europe (almost 3.5 million). This may be why 70% of the Nazi extermination camps during WWII were located in what is now Poland, including the three most infamous ones: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Belzec (each with an estimated number of deaths over 600,000).

Famous Poles

• Polish born astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus formulated the first explicitly heliocentric model of the solar system, thus starting the scientific revolution that would transform Europe and weaken the dogma of the Catholic Church. Ironically, Poland is nowadays one of the most staunchly Catholic country in Europe.
• Another Polish astronomer, Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) published the earliest exact maps of the moon.
• The classical composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was born in Poland to a Polish mother and a French-expatriate father (hence his French name).
• Marie Curie (born Maria Sklodowska ; 1867-1934), the first and only Nobel laureate in two different sciences and first female professor at the Sorbonne University.

• Amongst famous Poles who "made it" in the UK or US, let's cite:

• The writer Joseph Conrad (born Teodor Józef Konrad Nalecz-Korzeniowski, 1857-1924)
• The co-founder of Marks & Spencer, Michael Marks (1859-1907)
• The cosmetics industrialist Helena Rubinstein (1871-1965)
• The biochemist Casimir Funk (1884-1967), who first isolated and formulated the concept of "vitamins" (he also proposed the name).

• Poles have won a total of 19 Nobel prizes (more than China, India or Australia), including four Peace Prizes, four in Physics, and six in Literature.
• The highest mountain in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko, was named after general Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817), who fought against the Russian Empire, as well as in the American Revolutionary War.

Poland, more Germanic or Slavic ?

• About one third of modern Poland used to be ethnically, culturally and linguistically German.
• Silesia (in the south-west of Poland) was settled in ancient times by the Lugiones (or Lugii), an originally Celtic tribe that was became Germanised over time. The region swore allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor in 1355 C.E. Although it had a large ethnic Slav community, the region became predominantly German-speaking during the Middles Ages, due to immigration from Germany.
• In the north-west of modern Poland, Pomerania is a region settled by Germanic tribes since ancient times, which stretches all the way between Gdansk (Danzig) and Stralsund, in East Germany.
• The north-east of Poland constitues the historical region of Prussia, which was originally settled by Baltic people, but controlled by the Teutonic knights since the 13th century, and progressively Germanised.
• The Duchy of Prussia merged with the Margriaviate of Brandenburg (around Berlin, in East Germany) to form the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, which progressively unified Germany and created the Second Reich in 1871. So it can be said that Germany was unified under the name of a historical area ("Prussia") being now entirely in Poland.
• Pomerania, Prussia and Silesia were ceded by Germany uto Poland as war reparations in 1945, but had been ethnically and culturally German for many centuries (for longer than the Americas have been colonised by Europeans).