Poland Travel Guide

Warsaw, the capital, lies in the easterly center of the country, the main city of a relatively flat region known as Mazovia. To the northeast, an interconnected series of rivers and lakes, known as the Mazurian lakes, stretches out to Kaliningrad and Lithuania. Much of this land was part of the German province of East Prussia and belonged to Germany as recently as World War II. South of Warsaw and Mazovia are the regions of Maopolska (Little Poland), often seen as the Polish heartland, and Kraków. Under Austrian occupation, Kraków was a leading city of the province of Galicia, which spreads east into present-day Ukraine. Below Kraków begins an area known as the Podhale, the foothills of the Tatras, and then farther south the mountains themselves. To the immediate west of Kraków lies the immense industrial region of Upper Silesia, including the central city of Katowice. Farther west, to Lower Silesia, the region becomes more agricultural. The capital of this area is Wrocaw, the former German city of Breslau. North of Wrocaw, starts the enormous regions of Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) and Pomorze (Pomerania) -- the ancient borderlands between Germany and Poland and rich with the legacy of the Teutonic Knights.