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Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Poland currently has a population of over 38 million people, [3] which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world [18] and one of the most populous members of the European Union.
The history of Poland spans over a thousand years, from medieval tribes, Christianization and monarchy; through Poland's Golden Age, expansionism and becoming one of the largest European powers; to its collapse and partitions, two world wars, communism, and the restoration of democracy.
Poland, [d] officially the Republic of Poland, [e] is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia [ f ] to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west.
Poland has never had any formal colonial territories, but over its history the acquisition of such territories has at times been contemplated, though never attempted. The closest Poland came to acquiring such territories was indirectly through the actions of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia , a fief of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth .
At the outbreak of the First World War Poland's geographical position between Germany and Russia had meant much fighting and horrific human and material losses for the Poles between 1914 and 1918. At the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in spring 1918, revolutionary Russia renounced Russian claims to Poland.
Poland and the EU say migrants — who have trekked to former Soviet countries from as far away as the Middle East and Africa — have become pawns in an effort by Russia and Belarus to ...
Poland in antiquity was characterized by peoples from various archeological cultures living in and migrating through various parts of what is now Poland, from about 400 BC to 450–500 AD. These people are identified as Slavs , Celts , Germanic peoples , Balts , Thracians , Avars , and Scythians .
[2] [3] According to the references given in this and Poland in the Early Middle Ages article, many scholars now believe that the Slavic tribes had not been present in Poland before the earliest medieval period, though the opposite view, predominant in Polish prehistory and protohistory in the past, is still represented. [4] [5]