POLAND 



the San, and beyond the rivers the 

 N. slopes of the Carpathians, an 

 upland country crossed by swift 

 rivers with steep-sided valleys. 



In the S. forest occurs above 2,000 

 ft., deciduous at lower levels and 

 coniferous above ; half this area is 

 arable and there are summer pas- 

 tures on the cleared heights. In the 

 N. the poorer sandy soil limits the 

 forest to a fifth of the area, and 

 beech and oak are found as well as 

 pine and spruce. The plains are 

 two-thirds arable and the rest is 

 half pasture, half forest ; W. of 

 Warsaw tillage is scientific, and 

 there are good crops of sugar-beet. 

 Most of the rivers are navigable, 

 some have been canalised in pa^ts, 

 and canals use the ancient water- 



6217 



ways. Warsaw and Posen are the 

 chief rly. centres ; both are con- 

 nected with Danzig, but neither 

 was directly connected, before 1914, 

 with Cracow. 



The Kielce plateau contains the 

 great coalfield of the S.W., part of 

 which is in the Oppeln district and 

 on which a great manufacturing 

 region has developed. Iron is mined 

 near Oppeln and Opoczno and, 

 with copper and lead, near Sando- 

 mierz. Lodz is a great manufac- 

 turing centre ; flax and wool ob- 

 tained locally and imported cotton 

 are worked up into textile goods. 

 Before 1914 Russian Poland 

 yielded a fifth of the coal and a 

 tenth of the pig-iron, iron goods, 

 and steel produced in the Russian 



-. POLAND 



Empire. Galicia yields petroleum 

 and ozokerite. Rye is the chief 

 cereal, and oats, wheat, and pota- 

 toes are grown. The people are in 

 the main Roman Catholic Poles, a 

 branch of the West Slavs. Living 

 among the Poles, chiefly in the 

 towns, are many Jews. On the out- 

 skirts of the republic there are 

 Ruthenes or Little Russians in 

 Galicia, White Russians and Lithu- 

 anians in the N.E. The country is 

 relatively densely populated, for 

 the S.W. and S. is the end of the 

 belt of dense population which 

 extends across Europe and ter- 

 minates in Belgium and Holland. 



The new republic has been 

 divided into fifteen counties; this 

 arrangement supersedes the former 



Folanl. Map of the republic which came into existence after the Great War, including territory formerly belonging to 

 Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, also showing the 1983 boundary with Lithuania 



