Central Industrial Region (Poland)

The Central Industrial District (Polish: Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy, abbreviated COP), is an industrial region in Poland. It was one of the biggest economic projects of the Second Polish Republic. The 5-year-long project was initiated by a famous Polish economist, deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Treasury, Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski. Its goal was to create a heavy industrial center in the middle of the country, as far as possible from any borders, strengthen the Polish economy and reduce unemployment. The four-year plan for the development of COP was scheduled from 1 September 1936 until 30 July 1940 and was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War and the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Nonetheless, the COP project succeeded in vastly expanding Polish industry, and after the end of the war in 1945 COP was rebuilt and expanded under the People's Republic of Poland.

Starting in 1928, there were recurring attempts to create a triangle of security, an industrial region in the middle of the country, secured from any aggression by Germany or Soviet Russia. The plan was finally approved in 1936 by the Polish government. By April 1938, the plan, already set in motion in some parts of the country, was expanded to the territories beyond those covered by the original plan for the most secure 'triangle'.

COP was located in the territories of the following former voivodeships: the eastern parts of the Kielce Voivodship and the Kraków Voivodship, the southern part of the Lublin Voivodeship, and the western part of the Lwów Voivodeship, or in other terms, 46 powiats, constituting 15.4% of the territory of Poland and inhabited by 17% of Poland's population. The urbanization factor of those territories was 17% (94 cities), compared to the national average of 30%. The arguments for this location of the COP were:

...
Wikipedia