50+ Interesting Facts About Poland

If you want to learn about Poland’s History, Culture, Food, People and Economy then you have come to the right place, we have curated more than 50 Interesting and fun facts about Poland than even kids will love.

1. The name “Poland” originates from the name of the tribe “Polanie” which means “people living in open fields”.
2. Poland’s formal name is Rzeczpospolita Polska (Republic of Poland).
3. The first Polish ruler recorded in history was Mieszko, about A.D. 963. In 966, Mieszko adopted Christianity, making Poland the easternmost country within the orbit of Latin culture.
4. Polish King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk became known as the “Father of Europe.” Of his nine children, one became a cardinal, four became kings, one was canonized, and the three daughters were married off to become mothers of the heirs of the greatest dynasties in Western Europe.
5. On November 11, 1918, Poland declared itself a republic, independent of Russia.



6. Kraków was the headquarters and the place of coronation of Polish kings and the nation’s capital from 1038 until the move to Warsaw in 1596.
7. The last Polish monarch, Stanisław Poniatowski, died in prison in 1798 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
8. On September 1, 1939, the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland without any prior declaration of war, thereby beginning World War II.
9. On November 3, 1939, the first death sentence of World War II was passed by the Nazis on two Polish women who had torn down Nazi placards.
10. On September 12, 1989, the first freely elected, noncommunist government in a Warsaw Pact state took office, led by Poland’s Nobel Peace Prize-winner Lech Wałęsa, who was instrumental in organizing the Solidarity movement of the 1980s.



11. Poland was under communist rule for many years before becoming a multi-party democracy in 1989.
12. Poland was the only European country which never officially collaborated with the Nazis at any level, and no Polish units fought alongside the Nazi army. Poland never officially surrendered to Germany, and the Polish Resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II was the largest resistance movement in Europe.
13. Historians believe that 284 Poles who were seen as threats to the communist regime were murdered and buried by Stalin’s secret police between 1945 and 1956. An exhumation at the military cemetery in Warsaw by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance is a part of a nationwide project to find the final burial places of the victims of Communist terror and to identify the bodies.
14. Poland’s national anthem is Dąbrowski’s Mazurek. The anthem, commonly known as “Jeszcze Polska nie zginęla” (“Poland Has Not Yet Perished”), was written in 1797 by Jozef Wybicki. The anthem was composed in Italy, where Polish troops were fighting at the side of Napoleon.
15. Napoleon Bonaparte met the Polish elite and his future mistress, Countess Maria Walewska, in the ballroom of Warsaw’s Zamek Królewski (Royal Castle) in 1806.



16. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose paternal Polish grandfather fought in the 1863 insurrection against Russia and was exiled to Siberia, is the most famous of the descendant of those Poles exiled or killed during that rebellion.
17. Poland joined NATO in 1999.
18. On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg made his courageous, though unsuccessful, attempt to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair, near Kętrzyn, in northeastern Poland. The Wolf’s Lair was Hitler’s main headquarters along the German Eastern Front.
19. The first surviving cookbook of Polish recipes dates from 1682 with dishes influenced by strong Lithuanian, Tartar-Turkish, and German influences.
20. Poland has a history of producing high-quality vodka for more than 500 years. The first Polish vodkas appeared in the 11th century when they were called gorzalka and used as medicines.



21. Pierogi, or Polish dumplings, are one of the most recognizable Polish dishes outside of Poland.
22. The biggest section of any grocery store in Poland is the candy section.
23. Located in Wrocław is the oldest restaurant in Europe, “Piwnica Swidnicka”, operating since 1275.
24. The most popular sport in Poland is football (soccer), the Polish national team came third in the 1974 and 1982 World Cup Finals and won Olympic Gold in 1972.
25. Nearly 35% of the 60 million Poles live abroad and large Polish speaking communities can be found in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, Brazil and Argentina.
26. Poles are well educated. 90% of Poland’s youths complete at least secondary education and 50% have an academic degree.
27. Polish people marry the youngest within the European Union (24 years old for women and 26.5 years old for men in average).
28. Polish has the second largest number of speakers among the Slavic languages after Russian.
29. The Polish language is one of the difficult languages to master for non-native speakers especially with its tongue-bending pronunciation and complex gender system.
30. A popular drink in Poland, orangeade or oranzada, is a sweet carbonated drink with an orange taste that originated in France and spread to Poland in the 18th century.



31. Susz is one of the main food of the Christmas Eve supper table in Poland. It is a compote prepared from the blend of dried fruits and has a brown, muddy look.
32. Traditionally, the main meal of 3 courses is eaten around 2 pm, starting with a soup, a main course of meat and a dessert.
33. It is estimated that 100 million pączki, a Polish doughnut, are consumed every year on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday alone.
34. In Poland, one’s “Name Day” – imieniny – is considered a far more important occasion than one’s birthday.
35. About 90% of the Polish population identify as Roman Catholic.



36. Poland is home to more winners of the World’s Strongest Man title than any other country in the world.
37. The Wieliczka Salt Mine was built in the 13th century and is one of the world’s oldest salt mines.
38. There are 32 letters in the Polish alphabet.
39. Poles peel bananas from the blossom end, opposite the stem.
40. Foreign movies that are aired on Polish TV have voiceovers performed by one person. One man does all of the voiceovers, even those of women and children.



41. The earliest maps of the moon were published by Johannes Hevelius, who was from Poland.
42. Maksymilian Faktorowicz hails from Poland and is known for inventing the Max Factor line of cosmetics.
43. Over 30% of Poland’s land is covered in forests, and it is the fourth most forested country in Europe.
44. There are over 1,300 lakes covering the surface of Poland.
45. It is estimated that 100 million pączki, a Polish doughnut, are consumed every year on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday alone.



46. Poland is located in the heart of Europe – right in the very center.
47. Poles have won a total of 17 Nobel Prizes (more than Japan, China, India, or Australia), including four Peace Prizes and five in Literature.
48. In 1912, Casimir Funk, a Polish-born American biochemist, collected all published literature on the issue of vitamin deficiency. He was the first to isolated niacin, later called Vitamin B3. He also coined the term vital amine to describe the class of chemicals he and other researchers were studying, and the word was later simplified to vitamin by 1920.
49. Poland’s Stanisław Lem is known as one of the world’s greatest science fiction writers. His novel Solaris was made into a movie in 2002.
50. Poles drink, on average, 92 liters of beer a year, which places Poland third in consumption in Europe behind Germany and the Czech Republic.
51. The highest mountain in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko, was named after Polish General Tadeusz Kościuszko, who fought against the Russian Empire as well as in the American Revolutionary War.