- published: 18 Feb 2015
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The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – three partitions which took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Lithuanian: Abiejų Tautų Respublika), resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years. The partitions were perpetrated by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg Austria, which divided up the Commonwealth lands among themselves progressively in the process of territorial seizures.
The First Partition of Poland, which the Poles proved incapable of resisting, was decided on August 5, 1772. Two decades later, Russian and Prussian troops entered Poland again and the Second Partition was signed on January 23, 1793. Austria did not participate in the Second Partition. The Third Partition of Poland took place on October 24, 1795, as soon as the Polish Kościuszko Uprising was defeated. With this partition, the independent Polish state ceased to exist.
Poland i/ˈpoʊlənd/ (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Kashubian: Pòlskô Repùblika; Silesian: Polsko Republika), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous post-communist member. Poland is a unitary state made up of 16 voivodeships. Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle and Schengen Agreement.
A Polish American (Polish: Amerykanin polskiego pochodzenia), is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States. No distinction is made in the American census between ethnically Polish Americans and descendants of non-ethnic Poles, such as Jews or Ukrainians, who were born in the territory of Poland and considered themselves Polish nationals. Therefore, some say, of the 10 million Polish Americans, only a certain portion are of Polish ethnic descent. On the other hand, many ethnic Poles when entering the US from 1795–1917, when Poland did not exist, did not identify themselves as ethnic Poles and instead identified themselves as either German, Austrian or Russian (this pertained to the nations occupying Poland from 1795–1917). Therefore, the actual amount of Americans of at least partial Polish ancestry, could be well over 10 million. Polish Americans are the largest European ethnic group in the United States of Slavic origin.