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Territorial evolution of Poland


Poland (Polish: Polska) is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the ninth largest in Europe.

From a nucleus between the Odra and Vistula rivers on the North European Plain, Poland has at its largest extent expanded as far as the Baltic, the Dnieper, the Black Sea and the Carpathians, while in periods of weakness it has shrunk drastically or even ceased to exist.

In 1492, the territory of Poland-Lithuania – not counting the fiefs of Mazovia, Moldavia, and East Prussia – covered 1,115,000 km2 (431,000 sq mi), making it the largest territory in Europe; by 1793, it had fallen to 215,000 km2 (83,000 sq mi), the same size as Great Britain, and in 1795, it disappeared completely. The first 20th-century incarnation of Poland, the Second Polish Republic, occupied 389,720 km2 (150,470 sq mi), while, since 1945, a more westerly Poland covered 312,677 km2 (120,725 sq mi).


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