Europe Travel Guides

Geography

Poland is roughly square, reaching a maximum of about 680km (422mi) from west to east and 650km (404mi) from north to south. It's bordered by the Baltic Sea to the northwest, by Germany to the west, the Czech and Slovak republics to the south and Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russia to the east. The northern part of Poland is varied and gently undulating, relatively well forested and covered by several thousand postglacial lakes. The flat central belt is the main agricultural area, watered by Poland's longest river, the Vistula, which, like all Poland's rivers, runs towards the north, draining into the Baltic Sea. Moving south, the terrain rises, culminating in the west with the Sudeten Mountains and to the east with the Carpathian Mountains, which run along the southern frontier. The highest peak is Rysy (2499m/8199ft) in the Carpathian's Tatra Mountains, Poland's alpine range.