Poland is not a uniform country in terms of relief. A glance at a geographical map is enough to understand how its configuration is indeed very varied, because there are mountain and hill regions, plateaus and lowlands, harmoniously arranged. Overall, however, it is not very high since it is estimated that only 13% of its territory is higher than 300 meters above sea level. the Dnieper and the Oder (see above: Delimitations and borders). The arrangement of the mountainous areas, the plateaus and the lowlands is such that, on the whole, the country regularly goes down from S. to N., that is, from the Carpazî to the Baltic. For Poland 2000, please check neovideogames.com.
Poland, as we have already seen, has only a very short stretch of the Baltic coast, between the territory of Gdansk and German Pomerania. The close of Polish territory area which goes towards the sea (the little Pomeranian or Pomerellia, Polish Pomorze, ie coast) constitutes what is commonly known as the “Polish corridor”. The coast is sandy, and closed inwards by marshy areas. Moreover, for almost half of its development it does not overlook the open sea, but on an almost lagoon part of the Gulf of Gdansk, closed to the north by a long sandy peninsula (Mierzeja Hel), a strip almost everywhere half a km wide. just, crossed by dunes parallel to the coast and no more than 15-20 meters high, inhabited by fishermen. In addition to being very short, the Polish coast presents conditions that are not very favorable to seafaring life; despite this, with great efforts and sacrifices Poland has built here its warship and trading port, Gdynia, whose development, as will be seen later, was very rapid.
Behind the low coastal area between the C. Rozewski and the mouth of the Niemen there is a slightly higher region (Baltic Ridge: 100-300 m.), Dotted with lakes; it belongs to Poland only to a small extent (eastern Pomerania), while the greater part, known as Masuria, belongs to Eastern Prussia. Polish Pomerania is occupied in the N. by moraine reliefs over 300 m high, rich in lakes and covered by beautiful forests and grasslands (the so-called Kashubian Switzerland). We then pass, proceeding towards S., in the wide area of the great valleys dug by the ablation waters of the Quaternary glacier, 50 to 150 m high, limited to noon and SE. from the reliefs of Little Poland (Małopolska) and the Lublin region (from 200 to 600 m. in height). To S. of Pomerania lies the basin of the Warta (tributary of the Oder), which forms the Posnania, a region of plains with clayey and sandy soil (Pliocene), deeply engraved by rivers, with small moraine hills that interrupt the monotony. The valleys often contain large, elongated lakes. In some parts (such as, for example, near Ostrów), the plain is made up of bottom moraines, with here and there characteristic landscapes drumlins, rounded hillocks representing subglacial deposits. In the center of Posnania, on the two banks of the Warta, lies Poznań, one of the largest Polish cities. It was from this area that the unification of the Polish tribes began, and Gniezno, a small town to the NE. of Poznań, was the ancient seat of the Piasti.
To the east of Gniezno the landscape changes: you enter Kuyavian, one of the most fertile regions of Poland, because it is covered with a black earth called Kuyavian humus.. Kujawy, whose main center is Inowrocław, is formed by a slightly undulating plain, about ninety meters high, which on the right of the Vistula continues in an area, also flat, surmounted by long alignments of continental dunes, which according to S. Lencewicz are of a later age than that of the löss and were built by the westerly winds, even now prevailing in the country. The region around Warsaw, called Masovia, is uniformly flat; just downstream from the capital, the Bug and the Vistula meet there. To the east of Masovia there is Podlasia, which can be identified, on the whole, with the Narew basin, a tributary of the Bug; it has as its center Białystok, and is a country that is partly low and marshy, partly occupied by sandy or pebbly hills, still covered by large forests.
The Polish territory is largely wedged between Lithuania and White Russia: it is a part of the Niemen and Dźwina basins, a barren and depopulated region, rich in lakes, furrowed by large fluvio-glacial valleys that are still marshy and largely covered starts from forests. Low moraine hills form the watershed between the numerous rivers. Vilna is the political and economic center of the region.
