Land of Poland
Poland lies at the physical centre of the European continent, approximately between latitudes 49° and 55° N and longitudes 14° and 24° E. Irregularly circular in shape, it is bordered to the north by the Baltic Sea, to the northeast by Russia and Lithuania, and to the east by Belarus and Ukraine. To the south the border follows the watershed of the Beskid (Beskidy), Carpathian (Karpaty), and Sudeten (Sudety) mountains, which separate Poland from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, while to the west the Neisse (Nysa Łużycka) and Oder (Odra) rivers define the border with Germany. Its current frontiers, stretching for 2,198 miles (3,538 km), were drawn in 1945. Except for its southern mountainous regions, the country consists almost entirely of lowlands within the North European Plain.
Relief
The natural landscape of Poland can be divided broadly into three relief groups: the lowlands, the highlands, and the mountains. The eastern extremes of Poland display characteristics common to eastern Europe, but the rest of the country is linked to western Europe by structure, climate, and the character of its vegetation. The lowland characteristics predominate: the average elevation of the whole country is only 568 feet (173 metres) above sea level, while more than three-fourths of the land lies below 650 feet (198 metres).
Poland’s relief was formed by the actions of Ice Age glaciers, which advanced and receded over the northern part of the country several times during the Pleistocene Epoch (from about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). The great and often monotonous expanses of the Polish lowlands, part of the North European Plain, are composed of geologically recent deposits that lie over a vast structural basin.
In the southern part of the country, by contrast, older and more diverse geologic formations are exposed. The mountainous arc of the Carpathians, dating from the mountain-building Paleogene and Neogene periods (from about 65 to 2.6 million years ago), dominates the topography. Around the northern rim of the Carpathians lie a series of structural basins, separating the mountain belt proper from a much older structural mass, or foreland, that appears in the relief patterns of the region as the Bohemian Massif, the Sudeten, and the Little Poland Uplands (Wyżyna Małopolska).
The relief structure can be divided more specifically into a series of east-west–trending zones. To the north lie the swamps and dunes of the Baltic Sea coast; south of these is a belt of morainic terrain with thousands of lakes, the southern boundary of which marks the limit of the last ice sheet. The third zone consists of the central lowlands, whose minimal relief was created by streams issuing from the retreating glaciers. This zone is the Polish heartland, the site of agriculture in places where loess has been deposited over the relatively infertile fluvioglacial deposits. The fourth zone is made up of the older mountains and highlands to the south; though limited in extent, it offers spectacular scenery. Along the southern border of the country are the Sudeten and Carpathian ranges and their foothills.
The coastal plain
The Baltic Coastal Plain stretches across northern Poland from Germany to Russia, forming a low-lying region built of various sediments. It is largely occupied by the ancient province of Pomerania (Pomorze), the name of which means “along the sea.” The scarcely indented Baltic coastline was formed by wave action after the retreat of the ice sheet and the raising of sea levels. The Pomeranian (Pomorska) Bay in the west and the Gulf of Gdańsk in the east are the two major inlets. In the southern portion of the former, two islands block off the Szczeciński Lagoon (Zalew Szczeciński), into which the Oder River discharges its waters. In the Gulf of Gdańsk, the Vistula (Wisła) River forms a large delta. Sandbars, on which the winds have created large dunes, line much of the coast, separating the coastal lakes and lagoons from the sea.
The main urban centres are the ports of Szczecin (German: Stettin) on the lower Oder and Gdańsk (German: Danzig) and Gdynia in the east. The central portion of the Baltic Coastal Plain is scantily populated—there are only small fishing ports, of which Kołobrzeg is the most important—and the landscape has a desolate beauty.
The lake region and central lowlands
The belt immediately to the south of the coastal plain is a varied landscape with lakes and hills of glacial origin. Wide river valleys divide the region into three parts: the Pomeranian Lakeland (Pojezierze Pomorskie); the Masurian (Mazurskie) Lakeland, east of the lower Vistula; and the Great Poland (Wielkopolskie) Lakeland. The larger settlements and the main communications routes of this zone lie in and along the river valleys; the remainder of the area is mostly wooded and thinly populated. Only the eastern portion of the Great Poland Lakeland has a developed agriculture.
The extensive central lowlands contain isolated relief features shaped by the oldest glaciations, but their character is generally flat and monotonous. The postglacial lakes have long since been filled in, and glacial outwash masks the weakly developed meltwater valley channels. The basins of the main rivers divide the area into the Silesian (Śląska) Lowland, which lies in the upper Oder; the southern Great Poland Lowland, which lies in the middle Warta River basin; and the Mazovian (Mazowiecka) and Podlasian (Podlaska) lowlands, which lie in the middle Vistula basin. Lower Silesia and Great Poland are important agricultural areas, but many parts of the central lowlands also have large industrial centres. Warsaw, the capital, situated on the middle Vistula, is the most prominent.
The Little Poland Uplands
South of the central lowlands, the Little Poland Uplands extend from east to west, but they are folded transversely. In the west is the Silesian-Kraków upthrust, with rich deposits of coal. The ancient rocks of the Świętokrzyskie (“Holy Cross”) Mountains, which reach a maximum elevation of 2,008 feet (612 metres), form a second upthrust. Between these two regions lies the Nida River basin, with an average height of 650 to 1,000 feet (198 to 305 metres). East of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, the uplands are cut by the valley of the Vistula, beyond which lie the Lublin (Lubelska) Uplands. In the south occur patches of loess on which fertile brown- and black-earth soils have developed.
The older geologic regions contain valuable minerals; in the Silesian-Kraków uplands there are coal, iron, zinc, and lead deposits. These mineral resources have made possible the rise of Poland’s most important industrial region, and the landscape of Upper Silesia is highly urbanized. Katowice is the largest centre, and the region is closely linked with that around Kraków (Cracow). The Little Poland Uplands protect the Little Poland Lowlands, in which Kraków lies, from the colder air of the north. To the north the Staropolski (“Old Polish”) Basin, situated in the foothills of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, has a long history of industrial production. Kielce is the area’s urban centre.