Polish people
(Polacy)





Władysław Elbow-high • Copernicus • Kochanowski • Krasicki • Kościuszko
Staszic • Chopin • Łukasiewicz • Wieniawski • Prus
Malczewski • Conrad • Zamenhof • Skłodowska-Curie • Piłsudski
Malinowski • Tatarkiewicz • Rejewski • Rotblat
Sendler • Koprowski • Lem • Wajda • Wolszczan

Total population
ca. 60 million (est.)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Poland 37,152,500 [2][3]
United States (Polish ancestry) 10,000,000 [4]    Germany 2,000,000 - 3,000,000 [1][5][6]    Brazil 1,500,000 [7]    Canada 984,565 [8]    United Kingdom 500,000 - 1,000,000 [1][9]    Argentina 500,000 [10]    Belarus 294,549 [11]    Lithuania 212,800 [12]    Ireland 122,585 [13]    Australia 78,340 [14]    Ukraine 144,130 [15]    Norway 120,000 [16]    Italy 109,018 [17]    France 90,000 [18]    Russia 73,000 [19]    Czech Republic 51,968 [20]    Latvia 44,783 [21]    Netherlands 39,500 [22]    Kazakhstan 34,057 [23]    South Africa 30,000 [24]    Sweden 27,518 [25]    Austria 21,000 [26]    Iceland 10,540 [27]    Denmark 5,300 [28]    Moldova 4,174 [29]    Romania 3,671 [30]    Slovakia 3,084 [31]    Finland 3,000 [32]
Languages
Polish
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholicism, also Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Judaism.
Related ethnic groups
related ethno-linguistic people group: Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs

The Polish people, or Poles (Polish: Polacy [pɔˈlat​͡sɨ]; singular: Polak), are a nation indigenous to Poland. They speak the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe. The Polish word for a Polish person is "Polak" (masculine) and "Polka" (feminine).

The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland. Poland's inhabitants live in the following historic regions of the country: Wielkopolska, Małopolska, Mazovia, Pomerania, Warmia, Mazury, Podlasie, Kujawy and Silesia. A wide-ranging Polish diaspora exists throughout Europe (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine), the Americas (the United States, Brazil and Argentina) and Australia. Chicago, in the United States, has the world's largest urban Polish population after Warsaw.^[33]

Over a thousand years ago, the Polans of Giecz, Gniezno and Poznań — an influential tribe in Wielkopolska — succeeded in uniting Lechitic tribes under what became the Piast dynasty,^[34] thus giving rise to the Polish state.

Statistics[link]

Polish people are the sixth largest national group in European Union.^[35] Estimates vary depending on source, though available data suggest a total number of around 60 million people worldwide (with roughly 21 million living outside of Poland, many of whom are not of Polish ethnicity, but Polish nationals).^[1] There are almost 39 million Poles in Poland alone. There are also Polish minorities in the surrounding countries including Germany, and indigenous minorities in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. There are some smaller indigenous minorities in nearby countries such as Moldova and Latvia. There is also a Polish minority in Russia which includes indigenous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million.^[36]

The term "Polonia" is usually used in Poland to refer to people of Polish origin who live outside Polish borders, officially estimated at around 10 to 20 million. There is a notable Polish diaspora in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. France has a historic relationship with Poland and has a relatively large Polish-descendant population. Poles have lived in France since the 18th century. In the early 20th century, over a million Polish people settled in France, mostly during world wars, among them Polish émigrés fleeing either Nazi occupation or later Soviet rule.

In the United States a significant number of Polish immigrants settled in Chicago, Ohio, Detroit, New York City, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and New England. The highest concentration of Poles in the United States is in New Britain, Connecticut. The majority of Polish Canadians have arrived in Canada since World War II. The number of Polish immigrants increased between 1945 and 1970, and again after the end of Communism in Poland in 1989. In Brazil the majority of Polish immigrants settled in Paraná State. The city of Curitiba has the second largest Polish diaspora in the world (after Chicago) and Polish music, dishes and culture are quite common in the region.

In recent years, since joining the European Union, many Polish people have emigrated to countries such as Ireland, where an estimated 200,000 Polish people have entered the labour market. It is estimated that over half a million Polish people have come to work in the United Kingdom from Poland. Since 2011, Poles have been able to work freely throughout the EU and not just in the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden where they have had limited rights since Poland's EU accession in 2004. The Polish community in Norway has increased substantially and has grown to a total number of 120,000, making Poles the largest immigrant group in Norway.

Before World War II many Polish Jews became followers of Zionism and subsequently emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. Following the Holocaust, the vast majority of surviving Polish Jews moved to Israel. Poland is the largest single place of origin of Israeli Jews.

(for ethnic Poles living abroad see Polonia, for those living and working in the United Kingdom see Polish British)

Culture[link]

The state flag of Poland as used by Polish government and diplomatic authorities

The culture of Poland has a history of 1000 years.^[37] Located in Central Europe, its character developed as a result of its geography at the confluence of fellow Central European cultures (German, Western Ukrainian, Czech and Austrian) the Western European cultures (French and Dutch), Southern European cultures (Italian and Turkish), Northern European cultures (Lithuanian, Swedish and Danish) and Eastern European cultures (East Ukrainian and Russian) along with cultural influence of the Jewish culture. Confluences were conveyed by immigrants (Jewish, German and Dutch), political alliances (with Lithuania, Hungary, Saxony, France and Sweden), conquests of the Polish state (Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia) or conquerors of the Polish lands (Tsardom of Russia, Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy, later on Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary).

With origins in the culture of the Lechites, over time Polish culture has been greatly influenced by its ties with the Germanic, Latinate and other ethnic groups and minorities living in Poland like the Jews.^[38] The people of Poland have traditionally been seen as hospitable to artists from abroad (especially Italy) and open to cultural and artistic trends popular in other European countries. Owing to this central location, the Poles came very early into contact with both civilizations - eastern and western, and as a result developed economically, culturally, and politically. A German general Helmut Carl von Moltke, in his Poland. A historical sketch (1885), stated that Poland prior to her partitions was "the most civilized country in Europe".

In the 19th and 20th centuries the Polish focus on cultural advancement often took precedence over political and economic activity, experiencing severe crisis, especially during the II World War and in the coming years. These factors have contributed to the versatile nature of Polish art, with all its complex nuances.^[38]

Language[link]

John III Sobieski's coat of arms crowning the Royal Chapel in Gdańsk, 1681

Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is a Lechitic languages and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most of Poland, though numerous languages, speeches and dialects coexist along the standard Polish language. The Encyclopædia Britannica says that "Lekhitic languages, also spelled Lechitic, group of West Slavic languages composed of Polish, Kashubian and its archaic variant Slovincian, and the extinct Polabian language. All these languages except Polish are sometimes classified as a Pomeranian subgroup. In the early Middle Ages, before their speakers had become Germanized, Pomeranian languages and dialects were spoken along the Baltic in an area extending from the lower Vistula River to the lower Oder River. Kashubian and Slovincian survived into the 20th century; there were still a considerable number of native speakers of Kashubian in Poland and Canada in the 1990s. The extinct Polabian language, which bordered the Sorbian dialects in eastern Germany, was spoken by the Slavic population of the Elbe River region until the 17th or 18th century; a dictionary and some phrases written in the language exist".^[39]

Religion[link]

Most Poles, by far, adhere to the Christian faith, the majority belonging to the Roman Catholic Church.^[40] The rest of the population consists mainly of Eastern Orthodox, Jehovah's Witnesses, various Protestant and Judaism.^[41] Roman Catholics live all over the country, while Orthodox Christians can be found mostly in north-east, in the area of Białystok, and Lutherans in Cieszyn Silesia.

Exonyms[link]

Among the exonyms not native to the Polish people or language are: лях (lyakh) used in East Slavic languages. Today, the word Lachy is used by Eastern Slavs as synonyms for "Poles" and "Poland". The foreign exonyms include also: Lithuanian Lenkai, Hungarian Lengyelek and Turkish Leh.^[42] The former became the basis for Poland exonyms in a number of other Middle Eastern languages, including: Armenian: Լեհաստան Lehastan; Persian: لهستان‎ Lehestân; Tajik: لهستان Lahestan).

See also[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: People of Poland

Other

• Polish Americans

v t e Polonia and Polish minorities Europe Azerbaijan Belarus Czech Republic France Germany Ireland Latvia Lithuania Romania Russia Soviet Union Ukraine United Kingdom Elsewhere Argentina Australia Brazil Canada Kazakhstan Mexico Pakistan United States

vep:Pol'šalaižed