Planning a Trip

Poland is a mostly flat, sprawling country, covering some 312,000 sq. km (around 100,000 sq. miles). Its historical position, between Germany in the west and Russia in the east, has caused no end of hardship. Following World War II, the country's borders were shifted approximately 200km (120 miles) to the west, gaining territory at the expense of Germany and losing it to the then-Soviet Union. The country shares borders with the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the south, and Belarus and Ukraine to the south and east. Germany lies to the west. To the north, Poland borders the Baltic Sea and Lithuania. Poland also shares a long northern border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, part of former German East Prussia that the Soviet Union claimed after World War II, but which does not connect to the Russian homeland.