Poland

Poland

A project by Korey T. and Alyssa W.

__**geography**__**:**Poland has seven bordering countries: Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. It's located between the Vistula and Odra rivers. Poland is the 9th largest country in Europe, and the 69th largest country in the world. The territory is smaller than Germany, Finland, and Norway, but is bigger than Italy and Great Britain. Here are some basic facts about the geography of Poland: Total Area: 312, 685 sq km Land Area: 304, 465 sq km Water Area: 8, 220 sq km Elevation: 173 m (the highest elevation is at 2, 499 m, and that is Mount Rysy). Climate: temp. is cold, cloudy, moderately severe winters with frequent precipitation, mild summers with a lot of showers and thunderstorms. Terrain: mostly flat plain, but with mountains on the southern border.

The land of Poland varies throughout the region. Forests cover about 28% of the land. Mountain ranges cover the south area. Lowlands and uplands go across central Poland. The plains reach from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, unbroken. And beaches, lakes, and the ocean cover the northern area.



The forests of Poland are very important there. The Pisz Forest, the Notec Forest, the Tuchola Forest, the Lower Silesia Forest, and the Beech Forest are the forests of Poland. The Beech Forest is the finest beech forest. The mountains of Poland also play a very important role there. The Tatra Mountains are probably the most important mountains in Poland. These are also the home to the highest point in Poland, which is Mount Rysy. The Baltic Sea is very important to the people in there. But Poland is one of the biggest polluters of this sea. Russia and Sweden beat Poland in the pollution of it, but they are third. So, if they want to keep this as an important water source they are going to have to stop the pollution of the Baltic Sea.

__**traditional foods and agriculture:**__ The traditional food in Poland is the polish food. This food was a cuisine that was brought here during communist times it had then been a very popular food and then it became very unpopular and it is now coming back. Polish foods are very flavorful, hearty, and complex. These foods also have a lighter side. These traditional foods have influences from Italy and France. The Polish foods include many soups, thats made with mushrooms, broth, and beets. the most popular stew of the polish people would be the amazing hearty hunters stew. This stew goes by the name of bigos a full filled stew with a combination of cabbage, mushrooms, meat, and almost any other ingredient, savory or sweet thing you could think of. If you wanna know about polish food then pierogi is as polish as polish foods get. This is a dough filled with cheese, potatoes, onions, cabbage, mushrooms, and meat. A lot of people also add other things they think sound good. Poland has 18,727,000 hectares of just agriculture land, this is about 60% of Polands total land area. Much of this land is used for crop cultivation in matter of fact about 14,413,000 hectares are for this, and 265,000 hectares was used for orchads. The last 4,048,500 for meadows and pastures. In 1990 the grains were the most important crops such as wheat, rye, barley, and oats. There were plenty other main crops such as potatoes, sugar beets, fodder crops, flax, tobacco, hops, and fruits. Corn also became very, very popular in thier crops. The Polands mainly grew thier rye and potatoes in the poorer sandy soils which were located in the northern and east-central regions of the country. The richer soils which are located in central and southern parts of the Poland country, is where wheat, sugar beet, hops, and tobacco is grown. The higher elevations and more accessible land is where the oats were grown, and the land that was left were meadows and pastureland. Almost half of Polands land is arable land that is used to grow the the four major grains. Potatoes are a pretty big part of Polands agriculture as to grains. About 13% of the land there is just to grow potatoes. One thing that proves potatoes are a big part of Polands agriculture is that in 1989 Poland was known as the second largest producer of rye and potatoes in the world. The Polish people aslo had plenty of animals they used for agriculture such as dairy cows, beef cattle, pigs, and poultry.

__**language:**__

The main language in Poland is polish. Polish language is a member of the slavic language. Many people say that slavic languages are not considered easy but once you have mastered the various sound combinations of the polish language, the pronunciation becomes easy. There are many other slavic languages such as czech, slovak, russian, and a host of others. many of these languages are through out eastern and central europe and all of these languages are very similair with eachother and extremely hard to pronounce. They say all of these languages are extremely hard because they are not necessarily mutually comprehensible. There are also lots of unusual punctuation symbols and a very high amount of consonants to vowels. I will now tell you some of the important words and phrases in polish such as:

yes = tak no = nie good morning = dzien dobry good evening = dobry wieczor goodbye = dowidzenia thank you = dziekuje please = prosze where is the bus station? = gdzie jest stacja autobusowa? where is the train station? = gdzie jest stacja kolejowa? where is the toilet? = gdzie jest toaleta? i dont understand = nie rozumiem i speak only english = mowie tylko po angielsku

now i will tell you how i would say my name in polish nazywan sie Korey. now i will show you how to count in ten to polish.

one = jeden two = dwa three = trzy four = cztery five = piec six = szesc seven = siedem eight = osiem nine = dziewiec ten = dziesiec media type="youtube" key="2nmFHUbVQtA" height="344" width="425"


 * __religion:__** Religion in Poland plays a huge role in their lives. The biggest religion is Catholic. About 90% of polish people are Catholic, so every 9 out of 10 people are this religion. But out of these people only about 60% go to the Catholic Church regularly. But this religion is so important to the region, they have made it a study in the schools. The other popular religions are Christian, different Methodists, Russian Orthodox, and several Protestant offshoots. They also have Muslims, Jews, Karaims, and Hare Krushnas. The most religious part of Poland are the highlander Podkarpacie region and the Silesia region.



In 912 AD the Normans embraced the religion of Christianity, when Charles the Simple of France offered Count Rollo this area of what is now Poland in exchange to marry his daughter. Count Rollo's daughter was a Christian, so living in Poland started this religion.

There are 138 registered churches or a religious associations in Poland. The biggest branch of Catholicism is the Roman Catholics, and it is said to have over 25 million people from Poland practice it. The second most popular which is Christian, and the biggest branch off of it is the Orthodox Church. They have an estimated 550 thousand people claim to be this religion.

Statisics according to the last CBOS poll: 94%-claim to believe in God 6%-claim they do not believe in God, or do not know 52%-claim they attend their church atleast once a week 17%-claim they go to church about once or twice a month 18%-claim they go to church a few times per year 13%-do not go to church