Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a Central European country, although it is often compared with Eastern Europe. The country borders on the Baltic Sea and Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast) in the north, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine in the east, the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the south, and Germany in the west. It has a territory of 321,677 square kilometers (120,725 square miles) and population of 38.6 million. The capital and largest city is Warsaw.

History

The name Poland (Polska) comes from Polanie (field dwellers)—the dominant group among the ancient Slavic tribes that founded the state in the tenth century and embraced Roman Catholicism. Poland rose to greatness in Europe under the dynasty of Jagiello in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, when, united with Lithuania, it controlled a huge empire from the Baltic to the Black Sea and championed the Christian cause against the invasion of the Ottoman Turks...