Culturally diverse throughout late antiquity, in the early medieval period the region became inhabited by tribal Polans who gave Poland its name.
Prehistoric human activity on Polish soil dates to c. It also shares maritime boundaries with Denmark and Sweden. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west.
The longest Polish river is the Vistula, and Poland's highest point is Mount Rysy, situated in the Tatra mountain range of the Carpathians. Poland has a temperate transitional climate, and its territory traverses the Central European Plain, extending from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south. Other major cities include Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of 312,700 km 2 (120,700 sq mi). Poland ( Polish: Polska ⓘ), officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. eu, shared with other European Union member states.
