Your Warehouse in Poland

* Rail: Poland’s railways constitute one of the larger railway systems in the European Union, with 23,420 km (14,552 miles) of network as of 1998). Access to track has been opened up to competition as required by the EU. However, delays by successive governments in reforming the state railway company, PKP, combined with the imposition of severe budgetary constraints, have caused a major crisis. Refurbishment of the network, bringing key routes into line with the standards on western European railway networks, is proceeding very slowly, and serious arrears of maintenance have resulted in the imposition of speed restrictions on many other lines. Line closures and withdrawal of feeder services similar to those that took place in the UK under the ‘Beeching Axe’ have accelerated since 2000.
* Road: by Western European standards, Poland has a relatively poor infrastructure of expressways/highways. The Government has undertaken a programme to improve the standard of a number of significant national highways by 2013. The total length of expressways/highways is 364,657 km (226,587 miles). There are a total of 9,283,000 registered passenger automobiles, as well as 1,762,000 registered trucks and buses (2000).
* Air: Poland has ten major airports (in decreasing order of traffic: Warsaw, Kraków, Katowice, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Poznań, Szczecin, Rzeszów, Bydgoszcz and Łódź), a total of 123 airports and airfields, as well as three heliports. The number of passengers at Polish airports has consistently increased since 1991.
* Marine: the total length of navigable rivers and canals is 3,812 km (2,369 miles). The Polish merchant marine consists of 114 ships, with an additional 100 ships registered outside the country. The principal ports and harbours are: Port of Gdańsk, Port of Gdynia, Port of Szczecin, Port of Świnoujście, Port of Ustka, Port of Kolobrzeg, Gliwice, Warsaw, Wrocław.

The share of the telecom sector in the GDP is 4.4% (end of 2000 figure), compared to 2.5% in 1996. Nevertheless, despite high expenditures for telecom infrastructure (the coverage increased from 78 users per 1000 inhabitants in 1989 to 282 in 2000) the coverage mobile cellular is 850 users per 1000 people (2006)

* Telephones - mobile cellular: 32.5 million (Raport Telecom Team 2006)
* Telephones - main lines in use: 12.5 million (Raport Telecom Team 2005)

The Polish landscape consists almost entirely of the North European Plain, with an average height of 173 m (568 ft). The Sudetes (including the Karkonosze) and the Carpathian Mountains (including the Tatra mountains) form the southern border. This is also where Poland’s highest point is found: Rysy, at 2,499 m (8,199 ft).

Several large rivers cross the plains: the Vistula (Wisła), Oder (Polish:Odra), Warta and the (Western) Bug rivers. Poland also contains over 9,300 lakes, predominantly in the northern part of the country. Masuria (Mazury Lake District) forms the largest and most-visited lake district in Poland. Remnants of ancient forests, such as Białowieża Forest, still exist.

Poland enjoys a temperate climate, with cold, cloudy, moderately severe winters and mild summers with frequent showers and thunderstorms.

Poland (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. It also shares a maritime border with Denmark and Sweden. The total area of Poland is 312,683 sq km (120,728 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world. Poland’s population is over 38.5 million people, concentrated mainly in large cities such as the historical capital Kraków and the present capital Warsaw.

The first Polish state was created in 966, within territory very similar to the present boundaries of Poland. Poland became a kingdom in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by uniting to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth collapsed in 1795. Poland regained its independence in 1918 after World War I but lost it again in World War II, occupied by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, emerging several years later as a communist country within the Eastern Bloc under control of the former Soviet Union. In 1989, communist rule was overthrown and Poland became what is informally known as the “Third Polish Republic”. Today, as the 6th most populated member state of the European Union, Poland is a liberal democracy made up of sixteen voivodeships (Polish: województwo). Poland is also a member of European Union, NATO, the United Nations, OECD and the World Trade Organization.