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Poland lies in the heart of Central Europe. Most of the country is flat farmland and forest on the great European plain, which gave the land its name: the Polans, an early Slavic tribe, were 'people living in open fields'. In the north it meets the Baltic Sea with sandy beaches and dunes, in the north-east lies the Masurian Lake District, with more than two thousand of the country's roughly ten thousand lakes, and in the far south rise the Sudetes and the Carpathian mountains, including the rocky Tatras.
Polish statehood is usually dated to 966, when Duke Mieszko I was baptised. The Kingdom of Poland joined with Lithuania to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of Europe's great powers, which adopted a modern constitution in 1791. Soon after, its neighbours divided up what was left of it, and Poland vanished from the map for 123 years. It returned in 1918, suffered terribly in the Second World War, lived under communist rule, and in 1989 led the way out of it with the Solidarity movement.
Today Poland is a parliamentary republic of about 37.3 million people. It joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, but it keeps its own currency, the złoty. As of 2026 it has 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, from Kraków's old town to the primeval Białowieża Forest.
Poland's story runs from a duke's baptism and a golden age of kings and scholars, through the partitions that erased it from the map, to the terrible years of the Second World War and the peaceful Solidarity revolution that helped end communism in Europe.
Duke Mieszko I, the first ruler of the Polish state, was baptised together with much of his court, probably at Poznań or Gniezno. His Czech wife Dobrawa is often credited with influencing him. Many historians see this as the beginning of Poland as a state.
The Holy Roman Emperor Otto III made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Adalbert in Gniezno and met Duke Bolesław I the Brave there. The meeting strengthened Poland's place among the Christian states of Europe.
Bolesław I the Brave, son of Mieszko I, was crowned the first king of Poland in 1025, near the end of his life, after years of building up the Polish Church and enlarging his lands.
King Casimir III the Great founded a university in Kraków. Today called the Jagiellonian University, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the oldest surviving universities in the world. Copernicus later studied there.
On 15 July 1410 the armies of Poland and Lithuania, led by King Władysław II Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas, crushed the Teutonic Knights. It was one of the largest battles of medieval Europe, and the Teutonic Order never recovered its former power.
Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Toruń, published his great book 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres' in the year of his death. It argued that the Earth moves around the Sun, not the other way round.
On 1 July 1569 Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania joined into a single state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with one elected king and one parliament. It became one of the largest countries in Europe.
On 12 September 1683 King John III Sobieski led a relief army of Polish and Imperial troops that broke the Ottoman siege of Vienna. The victory made Sobieski a hero across Christian Europe.
The Commonwealth adopted a written constitution with a separation of powers, often called the first modern constitution in Europe and the second in the world after that of the United States. It was in force for less than 19 months, and 3 May is still a national holiday.
In the third partition, Russia, Prussia and Austria divided up what was left of the Commonwealth. After partitions in 1772, 1793 and 1795, there was no independent Polish state for 123 years.
At the end of the First World War all three partitioning empires had collapsed. On 11 November 1918 Józef Piłsudski was given command in Warsaw, and the reborn Second Polish Republic began. The date is now Poland's National Independence Day.
On 1 September 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting the Second World War in Europe, and on 17 September the Soviet Union invaded from the east. Around 6 million Polish citizens died in the war, about half of them Polish Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
On 1 August 1944 the Polish underground Home Army rose up to free Warsaw from German occupation. They fought for 63 days with little outside help. After the defeat, German forces systematically destroyed most of the city.
Strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980 led to Solidarity, the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. Led by the electrician Lech Wałęsa, it soon had about 10 million members.
After Round Table talks between the communists and Solidarity, elections were held on 4 June 1989. Only part of the seats were freely contested, but Solidarity won almost all of them, and in August Tadeusz Mazowiecki became Poland's first non-communist prime minister since the 1940s.
On 1 May 2004 Poland joined the European Union together with nine other countries. It had already joined NATO on 12 March 1999, and in 2007 it joined the Schengen area.
Polish food is hearty, warming country cooking, built on potatoes, cabbage, rye, mushrooms, pork and fresh curd cheese, with many sour and pickled flavours. The main meal of the day, obiad, traditionally starts with a soup such as rosół or tomato soup, followed by meat with potatoes and a salad of shredded vegetables, and often ends with cake. On Christmas Eve, called Wigilia, families serve a meat-free supper that often begins with clear red barszcz.
Half-moon dumplings of soft dough, boiled and often then fried in butter. Favourite fillings include potato with curd cheese and onion (pierogi ruskie), sauerkraut with mushrooms, minced meat, or sweet fruit in summer.
Pierogi already appear in the oldest surviving Polish cookbook, published in Kraków in 1682. The word comes from an old Slavic root meaning 'feast'.
A rich stew of sauerkraut and fresh white cabbage slowly cooked with several kinds of meat and sausage, dried mushrooms, prunes and spices. It is served hot with rye bread or potatoes.
A good bigos uses many different meats, so making it is a traditional way to use up leftovers. It is often said to taste best when reheated over several days.
Soft boiled cabbage leaves wrapped around a filling of minced pork or beef, onion and rice or buckwheat groats, then baked or simmered in a tomato or mushroom sauce.
Gołąbki means 'little doves' or 'little pigeons', perhaps because of their plump shape, although linguists disagree about where the name comes from.
Crisp pancakes of grated raw potato, onion, egg and a little flour, fried in oil. They are eaten with sour cream, apple sauce or sugar, or in the mountains with a spicy goulash poured on top.
Poles eat them sweet, with sugar or apple sauce, or savoury, with sour cream, mushroom sauce or a spicy goulash.
A slice of pork loin beaten thin, coated in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fried until golden. It is a classic Polish dinner, served with boiled potatoes and cabbage or a cucumber salad.
It is a cousin of the Viennese schnitzel. Recipes for it appear in an 1860 Polish cookbook called '365 Dinners for Five Złoty'.
A tangy, creamy soup made with soured rye flour, flavoured with garlic and marjoram and served with white sausage, bacon and halved hard-boiled eggs. It is sometimes served in a hollowed-out loaf of bread.
Żurek is a traditional Easter dish, though Poles eat it all year round.
A clear, ruby-red beetroot soup with a gentle sweet-sour taste, served with uszka, tiny dumplings filled with wild mushrooms. It is the classic first course of the Christmas Eve supper.
Uszka means 'little ears', after the shape of the dumplings.
A clear golden broth slowly simmered from chicken or beef with root vegetables, served with very thin noodles and chopped parsley. It is the classic start to a family Sunday dinner.
Rosół is a traditional soup at weddings, and many Polish families still swear by it as a cure for colds.
A firm, smoked cheese of salted sheep's milk, pressed into decorated wooden moulds that give it a spindle shape and a carved pattern. It is often grilled and eaten with cranberry jam.
Oscypek has protected status in the European Union: it must be made from at least 60% sheep's milk, and only between late April and early October, when the sheep graze on fresh mountain grass.
A twisted ring of bread that is boiled before baking, like a bagel, then sprinkled with salt, poppy seeds or sesame. It is chewy inside and crisp outside, and sold from street carts all over Kraków.
It has protected regional status in the EU. Its name comes from the Polish verb 'obwarzać', to parboil.
Rich, round doughnuts made with eggs and butter, filled with plum jam or rose petal jam and dusted with sugar or glazed.
Poles eat huge numbers of them on Fat Thursday (Tłusty Czwartek), the last Thursday before Lent, a tradition that began as a way to use up lard, sugar and eggs before the fast.
A baked cheesecake made with twaróg, a fresh Polish curd cheese, together with eggs and butter. It is lighter and a little drier than a cream cheese cake, and is often flavoured with vanilla, lemon or raisins.
Sernik dates back to the 17th century. The Kraków version has a lattice of pastry on top.
Spiced honey biscuits and cakes, traditionally shaped in carved wooden moulds, some filled with jam and covered in chocolate.
The first mention of Toruń gingerbread dates from 1380. In 1556 Toruń and Nuremberg, the other great gingerbread city, agreed that each could bake the other's specialities.
Kiełbasa simply means 'sausage' in Polish, and there are dozens of kinds, smoked or fresh, from thin dry kabanosy to white sausage for Easter żurek. It is grilled, fried with onions, or eaten cold with bread and mustard.
Several Polish sausages are protected in the EU, among them kiełbasa lisiecka from near Kraków.
Poland's cities each have their own story: rebuilt Warsaw on the Vistula, royal Kraków, the Baltic port of Gdańsk, Wrocław on its islands in the Oder, Gothic Toruń, and Zakopane at the foot of the Tatras.
The capital and largest city, home to about 1.87 million people, on the Vistula river in east-central Poland. It became the royal capital when King Sigismund III moved his court here from Kraków in the late 16th century. After the Warsaw Uprising most of the city lay in ruins, and its Old Town was carefully rebuilt after the war.
Poland's second-largest city and its royal capital for centuries, on the Vistula in the south. It escaped destruction in the Second World War, and its old town, with the huge Main Market Square, is one of the treasures of Europe.
A great Baltic seaport near the mouth of the Vistula, once a rich member of the Hanseatic League. The Second World War began here at Westerplatte in 1939, and Solidarity was born in its shipyard in 1980. With Sopot and Gdynia it forms the Tricity.
The third-largest city in Poland and the historic capital of Silesia, built on the Oder river and its many islands and bridges. It was a German city called Breslau until 1945 and is now a lively university town.
The fifth-largest city in Poland, on the Warta river in the west. It is one of the historic capitals of early Poland, the seat of the oldest Polish diocese, and a busy centre of trade with a big international fair.
A city in the middle of Poland that grew rapidly in the 19th century around its textile mills, with grand mansions next to red-brick factories. Its famous National Film School trained directors such as Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polański.
One of Poland's oldest cities, on the Vistula in the north. It was a Hanseatic trading town and was spared bombing in the Second World War, so its Gothic old town survives intact. Nicolaus Copernicus was born here in 1473.
A historic city in eastern Poland that grew rich on the trade route between Kraków and Vilnius. The Union of Lublin, which joined Poland and Lithuania into one state, was agreed here in 1569.
A mountain town at the foot of the Tatras, often called the winter capital of Poland. It is the centre of the culture of the Górale, the highlanders, and a base for skiing and hiking.
The main city of north-eastern Poland, about 200 km north-east of Warsaw and close to the border with Belarus. Forests cover almost a fifth of the city, and it is the gateway to the Białowieża Forest.
A port city on the Oder in the far north-west, close to the German border. It was long the capital of the dukes of Pomerania and later belonged to Sweden and Prussia, before becoming part of Poland after 1945.
Warsaw's Old Town was almost totally destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt stone by stone, mostly between 1947 and 1951. The project was a pioneering attempt to bring back a whole historic city centre, and it joined the World Heritage List in 1980. Its market square, Royal Castle and city walls look as they did before the war.
UNESCO World Heritage
A castle on a limestone hill above the Vistula, home of Polish kings for centuries. The cathedral beside it was where Polish monarchs were crowned and buried. It is part of the Historic Centre of Kraków, one of Poland's first two World Heritage Sites, listed in 1978.
UNESCO World Heritage
A royal salt mine just outside Kraków, dug from the 13th century and worked until 1996. It reaches 327 metres deep and has more than 287 km of passages. Visitors walk through chambers with an underground lake, chapels and statues carved by miners out of rock salt.
UNESCO World Heritage
The former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp near the town of Oświęcim, about 50 km west of Kraków. At least 1.1 million people were murdered here, about 960,000 of them Jews. Soviet troops liberated the camp on 27 January 1945, now International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today it is a museum and a place of remembrance.
UNESCO World Heritage
A vast red-brick castle south-east of Gdańsk, built by the Teutonic Knights between about 1274 and 1406. On its completion it was the largest brick castle in the world. It passed to the kings of Poland in 1457.
UNESCO World Heritage
Toruń's Old Town, New Town and castle, which received its town charter from the Teutonic Knights in 1233. UNESCO describes it as a small historic trading city that gives an exceptionally complete picture of medieval life, with its Gothic churches, burghers' houses and town hall.
UNESCO World Heritage
A huge domed hall of reinforced concrete, designed by Max Berg and built in 1911 to 1913. It was an early landmark of modern concrete building and is still used for concerts, sport and exhibitions. It became a World Heritage Site in 2006.
UNESCO World Heritage
One of the last and largest remaining parts of the primeval forest that once covered the European plain, shared between Poland and Belarus. The Polish national park lies about 62 km south-east of Białystok. As of 2026, more than 800 European bison, Europe's heaviest land animals, live in the forest.
UNESCO World Heritage
The largest lake in the Tatra Mountains, deep in the Tatra National Park. Its name means 'Eye of the Sea', from a legend that it was joined to the sea by an underground passage. A mountain hut on its shore is a starting point for the climb to Rysy.
A bronze statue of the sea god Neptune, cast in 1615, stands in Gdańsk's Long Market in front of Artus Court. The fountain is one of the most distinctive landmarks of the city.
Marie Curie was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, physics and chemistry.
The composer Frédéric Chopin was born in 1810 in Żelazowa Wola, west of Warsaw, and died in Paris. As he wished, his heart was brought back to Warsaw, and it rests in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church.
Every hour, a trumpeter plays a short tune called the hejnał from the highest tower of St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków. It stops suddenly in the middle of a note, in memory of a legendary watchman said to have been shot by an arrow while sounding the alarm.
Poland's national anthem, 'Poland Is Not Yet Lost', was written in Italy in 1797 for Polish legions fighting alongside Napoleon. It even names him: 'Bonaparte has shown us ways to victory'.
During the Second World War, Polish soldiers adopted a bear cub in Iran and named him Wojtek. He travelled with them to Italy, was said to carry ammunition crates at the Battle of Monte Cassino, was made a corporal, and spent his last years at Edinburgh Zoo.
Near Gryfino in north-western Poland stands the Crooked Forest: about 400 pine trees, planted around 1930, that all bend sharply near the ground and then grow upright again. Nobody knows for certain how they got their shape.
Around a quarter of all the world's white storks breed in Poland, one of the most important breeding grounds for these birds.
The Hel Peninsula is a sandy spit about 35 km long reaching into the Baltic Sea. In places it is only about 100 metres wide, and winter storms sometimes turn it into an island.
Deep in the Wieliczka Salt Mine, St. Kinga's Chapel was carved by miners out of the rock salt, and even its chandeliers are made of salt crystals. It is sometimes used for weddings.
As of 2026, Poland has 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The first two, Kraków's historic centre and the Wieliczka salt mine, were listed in 1978, and the newest, Gdynia's modernist city centre, was added in 2026.
As of 2026, Wrocław has around 1,000 small bronze dwarf figures hidden on pavements, walls and lampposts around the city. The first, Papa Dwarf, was placed in 2001, and hunting for them is a favourite pastime for visitors.
In 1978 Karol Wojtyła, the Archbishop of Kraków, was elected Pope John Paul II. He was the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century.
Poland's currency, the złoty, gets its name from the Polish word for 'golden'. It is divided into 100 groszy.
The Polish alphabet has letters with extra marks, such as ą, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź and ż, and it does not normally use q, v or x.
Pronunciation is written the way it sounds; the capital letters show where the stress goes. Audio is coming soon.
Poland is in the European Union but uses its own currency, the złoty (zł). Cards are accepted almost everywhere in the cities. If you change money, private exchange offices called kantor usually give fair rates, but those at stations and tourist hot spots often charge more.
A tip of about 10% is usual in restaurants when you are happy with the service. But if you hand over money and say 'Dziękuję' (thank you), it is understood as 'keep the change', so only say it when you really mean that.
Poland bans most trading on Sundays, apart from a few special shopping Sundays before big holidays. Supermarkets, malls and most shops are closed, but restaurants, petrol stations, bakeries and some pharmacies stay open. Plan your shopping for Saturday.
On trams and buses, validate your ticket in the machine at the start of your journey. Inspectors give fines for tickets that have not been validated.
It is illegal to drink alcohol in public places such as streets and parks, and police can fine you. Enjoy your beer or glass of wine in a bar, café or restaurant garden.
Call 112 for any emergency, from any phone. Poland also keeps its own older numbers: 999 for an ambulance, 998 for the fire brigade and 997 for the police.
Drive on the right. The alcohol limit is very low, 0.02%, so it is best not to drink at all before driving. Outside towns at night, walkers and cyclists must wear something reflective.
Many trails in the Tatras and other southern mountains are easy enough for a day walk, but take a waterproof jacket, good shoes and something warm, as rain and cold can arrive suddenly.
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