Country name: Republic of Poland
Geography: Central Europe, east of Germany
Area: 312,685 sq km
Population: 38,536,869
Capital: Warsaw
Language: Polish 97.8%, other and unspecified 2.2% (2002 census)
Natural resources: coal, sulfur, copper, natural gas, silver, lead, salt, amber, arable land
Government type: republic
Legal system: mixture of Continental (Napoleonic) civil law and holdover Communist legal theory; changes being gradually introduced as part of broader democratization process; limited judicial review of legislative acts, but rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal are final; court decisions can be appealed to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations.
The Republic of Poland is situated in the center of the European Continent with a vast area of 312,685 square kilometers and a population of approximately 38,500,000 people. The country is on the Baltic Sea coast. It shares boundaries with 7 countries: with Russia (Kaliningrad area) and Lithuania to the Northeast, with Belarus and Ukraine to the East, with Slovakia to the South, with Czech Republic to the Southwest and Germany to the West. The relief of the country is mainly flat plain, the average altitude of the country is 173 meters. The relief structure of Southern Poland is more diverse. The arc of the Carpathians dominates the geography of the area. The climate is a mixture of continental and maritime climate. Waves of air masses from the Atlantic Ocean influence the weather on the coastline. Cold air comes from Scandinavia. Cold and frosty winters dominate with a high level of precipitation and snowfall, while summers are mild.
History of Poland begins somewhere around 10th century. During its lifetime it had been invaded by different ethnic groups. In the 15th century Poland was in its “Golden Age” as being the largest and most powerful state in Europe. The country was devastated during the two world wars, especially after the WW II. The Holocaust was a turning point in Polish History since a great part of its Jewish population was killed. After the war, Poland became a satellite of the Soviet Union. The totalitarianism continued until May 1989, when the Polish government fell and Poland undertook a rapid shift from communism to market economy. Despite a lot of obstacles, Polish economy turned out as one of the fastest developing in Central Europe and by the year 2000 it was already a democratic country. Poland joined NATO in1999 and subsequently the European Union in 2004.
Nowadays, Polish population is considered as one of the most homogeneous in the world since more than 95% are Polish. This is due to the fact that the Holocaust took a lot of victims and this lead to a high level of emigration which subsequently altered the borders of the country. As expected, the official language is Polish; however, there are some dialects in different part of the country that refer to former tribal division. The greatest part of the population is Roman Catholic (around 90%), with a small percentage of Eastern Orthodox. The Roman Catholic Church in Poland is highly respected by the society and faces an immense support from the authorities.
Poland is a presidential-parliamentary republic. Its currency is zloty (PLN). 1 US dollar can be exchanged for 2.149 PLN, while 1 Euro can be exchanged for 3.427 PLN.
Polish economy is one that has made a stable and successful transition to a market-based economy although some of the indicators, such as GDP per capita and unemployment rate, have not achieved the average measures of the EU. After the collapse of the Communism, the postcommunist government introduced a plan which aimed at keping inflation in a certain range and shifting ownership of state enterprises into private hands. Although the privatization proces turned out to be slow, the transition to market economy made Poland significantly involved into international organizations. It became a member of the WTO in 1995, followed by an accession into the OECD (Organization for economic cooperation and development) in 1996. Poland joined NATO in 1999 and became a full member of the EU in 2004. The adoption of a market economy affected Poland in a tremendous way. The real GDP growth from 1990 till 2000 averaged 4 % a year and the real GDP growth for 2007 averaged 6.5 %, however the GDP per capita is still low compared to that of the EU ( $16,000 in Poland while in the average in the EU is $32,800). Poland has also done a lot in order to reduce the unemployment rates. At the beginning of 1990s, the unemployment was one of high level, but at the end of the decay it reached 10 % which was also the average for Western Europe. However, a downturn in the Polish economy at the beginning of 21st century led to an increase in the unemployment rates to more than 17 %. Nowadays, the unemployment rate is between 12 and 13 % but still higher than the average in the EU, which is 8.5%. Polish economy grew due to high domestic demand, increased exports owing to its accession into the EU, high FDI and rising levels in corporate investment. High EU funds and subsidies also helped the Polish economy in a way that productivity increased therefore exports increased. The government that came to power in the autumn of 2007, has as a main goal to reduce the budget deficit as a percentage of the GDP in order to adopt the euro currency.
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