3. • Capital and largest city: Warsaw
• Official language: Polish
• Formation :
Christianisation April 14, 966
Kingdom of Poland April 18, 1025
Polish-Lithuanian July 1, 1569
commonwealth
Partition of Poland October 24, 1795
Duchy of Warsaw July 22, 1807
Congress Poland June 9, 1815
Reconstitution of Poland November 11, 1918
Invasion of Poland, World September 1, 1939
War II
Communist Poland April 8, 1945
Republic of Poland September 13, 1989
4. • Area: 312,685 km2
• Population: 38,415,284
• Median age
total: 38.5 years
male: 36.8 years
female: 40.3 years
• Religions
Roman Catholic 89.8% (about 75% practicing), Eastern
Orthodox 1.3%, Protestant 0.3%, other 0.3%,
unspecified 8.3%
• Climate: temperate with cold, cloudy, moderately
severe winters with frequent precipitation; mild
summers with frequent showers and thundershowers.
• Currency: Zloty (1 Polish zloty = 0.24 Euros)
5. • Poland has a great, long standing tradition of
tolerance towards minorities, as well as absence of
discrimination on the grounds of religion, nationality
or race.
• Artists from Poland,
including famous
composers
like Chopin or Penderecki
and traditional,
regionalized folk
musicians, create a lively
and diverse music scene.
6. Architecture
•Polish cities and towns reflect the whole spectrum
of European styles. Romanesque architecture is
represented by St. Andrew's Church in Kraków, and
characteristic for Poland Brick Gothic by St. Mary's
Church in Gdańsk.
7. Cuisine
• Polish cuisine has influenced the cuisines
of its surrounding countries. For
centuries the Polish foods have been the
arena of competing with France and Italy,
due to influx of merchants from Genoa,
Florence and other world cities. It is rich
in meat, especially pork, chicken and
beef, winter vegetables (cabbage in the
dish bigos) and spices.
• Notable foods in Polish cuisine include:
soups – rosół, barszcz, żurek, krupnik,
kapuśniak, zupa pomidorowa (zupa
means soup in Polish), zupa ogórkowa,
zupa grzybowa, flaczki (tripe soup) and
many more.
8. Sports
• Football (soccer) is the
country's most popular
sport, with a rich history
of international
competition. Track and
field, basketball,
volleyball, handball,
boxing, MMA, speedway,
ski jumping, cross-country
skiing, ice hockey, tennis,
fencing, swimming and
weightlifting are other
popular sports.
