Gregory's ServerThe last few weeks our weekly threads have been about OpenStreetMap, but this week we get back to #geoweirdness
Join us as we consider the geographic oddities of the Republic of Poland ๐ต๐ฑ
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3/ Poland ๐ต๐ฑ is famed for its sandy beaches, 1000s of lakes, and deep forests. So you may be surprised to know it also has a desert. The small Bลฤdรณw Desert is not far from Krakow, and is jokingly refered to as the "Polish Sahara" 4/ The borders of Poland ๐ต๐ฑ have changed many, many times over the years. Wikipedia has a great guide full of maps: 5/ Central Europe has of course been a region of great change over the centuries even into the modern era: not a single country that Poland ๐ต๐ฑ bordered in 1990 still exists! 6/ The modern borders were (with a few minor tweaks) set after WWII, with Poland ๐ต๐ฑ transferring a large chunk of territory in the east to the Soviet Union (now Lithuania ๐ฑ๐น, Belarus ๐ง๐พ, and Ukraine ๐บ๐ฆ) and gaining German territories in the west. The border with Germany ๐ฉ๐ช was not fully finalized until 1992 following German reunification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_Border_Treaty 7/ The different historical backgrounds of the various regions of modern Poland ๐ต๐ฑ continues to have cultural and political implications today. Some commentators refer to "Poland A" and Poland B" roughly corresponding to the formerly German parts of Poland (A) and the formerly Russian and Austrian parts (B). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_A_and_B here is a map of 2020 election results which roughly mirrors the divisions from a hundred years previously 8/ The border shifts leads to some odd situations like a Polish ๐ต๐ฑ train line that crosses back across a strip of Germany ๐ฉ๐ช between two Polish stations. 9/ While Poland ๐ต๐ฑ has no territorial exclaves, there is a massive Polish diaspora, especially since Poland joined the EU ๐ช๐บ in 2004. As an example Polish is the second most spoken language in ๐ฎ๐ช Ireland, with Poles making up >2% of the population. 10/ Final bit of #geoweirdness: Polish ๐ต๐ฑ postal codes consist of five digits, but there is a dash between the 2nd and 3rd digits (example: "12-345"), which is good fun for software that assumes postcodes contain only alphanumeric characters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_codes_in_Poland See our guide to common misconceptions about postal codes: https://opencagedata.com/guides/how-to-think-about-postcodes-and-geocoding |
2/ At first glance you might think Poland ๐ต๐ฑ does not have much #geoweirdness
The country has no exclaves or overseas territories.
Indeed, Poland is the 9th most rectangular country (Egypt ๐ช๐ฌ is first):
https://pappubahry.com/misc/rectangles/
but there are a few bits of oddness