warsaw

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska, is a country located in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, covering an area of 312,696 square kilometres, and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With a population of nearly 38.5 million people, Poland is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union. Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin.

Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Lithuania, and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the north, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west.

The history of human activity on Polish soil spans almost 500,000 years. Throughout the Iron Age the area became extensively diverse, with various cultures and tribes settling on the vast Central European Plain. However, it was the Western Polans who dominated the region and gave Poland its name. The establishment of Polish statehood can be traced to AD 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of the realm coextensive with the territory of presentday Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented its longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin.

Warsaw's name in the Polish language is Warszawa (also formerly spelled Warszewa and Warszowa). Other previous spellings of the name may have included Worszewa and Werszewa. According to some sources, the origin of the name is unknown. In Pre-Slavic toponomastic layer of Northern Mazovia: corrections and addenda (the Narew drainage), it is stated that the toponymy of northern Mazovia tends to have unclear etymology. Originally, Warszawa was the name of a fishing village.