The Republic of Poland was founded in 966 by Mieszko I, who belonged to the Piast dynasty. The capital and largest city is Warsaw with 1.7 million people. The total population for the Republic of Poland is 38.54 million. The Democratic Republic government is headed by the President Bronislaw Komorowski and the Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The population growth rate is -0.09% and ranks 203rd in the world. The official language is Polish and is spoken by 97.8% of the population. The minority languages spoken throughout Poland include German(0.4%), Belarusian(0.1%), and Ukrainian(0.1%). About 51 million Poles have cell phones. English levels tend to be very high in Poland, especially amongst the younger, well-educated. Many hundreds of thousands of Poles have worked outside their native country since Poland's accession to the EU. It would be rare for a visiting business person to need the services of a translator. Poles are direct communicators, believing that it is better to express opinions directly, rather than hiding the truth behind diplomacy or coded language. This directness can seem excessive to people who believe that it is better to speak more in directly in order to avoid hurting people's feelings. It is important to remember that more direct somebody is to you in Poland, the more respectful of you they are being.
Poland is 120, 728 sq. miles and is slightly smaller than the size of New Mexico. The temperate climate has cold, cloudy, moderately, severe winters with frequent precipitation. The summers have mild temperatures with frequent showers and thunderstorms. The terrain is mostly flat plains with mountains along the southern border. The northeastern region also known as Masurian Lake District has more than 2,000 lakes. The area is densely wooded, sparsely populated and lacks agricultural and industrial resources. The neighboring countries are Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, and Lithuania and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the northeast. Roman Catholic is the largest religion in Poland with 89.8% of the population. Other religions practiced throughout Poland include Eastern Orthodox(1.3%) and Protestant(0.3%).
Lack of a strong monarchy enabled Russia, Prussia, and Austria to carry out a first partition of the country in 1772, a second in 1792, and a third in 1795. For more than a century thereafter, there was no Polish state, just Austrian, Prussian, and Russian sectors, but the Poles never ceased their efforts to regain their independence. The Polish people revolted against foreign dominance throughout the 19th century. Poland was formally reconstituted in November 1918 with chief of state Marshal Josef Pilsudski. Pilsudski seized complete power and ruled dictatorially until his death on May 12, 1935.
Despite a ten-year nonaggression pact signed in 1934, Adolf Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1930. Soviet troops invaded from the east on September 17, and on September 28, a German-Soviet agreement divided Poland between the USSR and Germany. All of Poland was occupied by Germany after the Nazi attack on the USSR in June 1941. Nazi Germany's