BY KEALAN MCAULIFFE

 Overall population-38,415,284  Capital city-warsaw.population-1,720,394  Currency-the zloty  Krakow  46million mobile phones.

 Ethnicity-96.7% polish,0.4% german,0.1 % belorussin,0.1% ukarannian.  Main religions-roman catholic 89.8%(with about 75% practicing) eastern orthodox 13% and 0.3% protestant..8.3% are unspecified

 Industry is 36.6%  Agriculture is 0.8%  Services are 66.1%  Main imports are machinery, transport equipment, minerals, fuels and their main trading partner is Germany.

 Main industries include machine building, iron and steel industries, coal mining, chemicals, ship building, food processes, glass, beverages and textiles

 Main agricultural produce are potatoes, fruits, vegetables, wheat, poultry, pork and dairy

 Great (north) Poland was founded in 966 by mieszko 1,who belonged to the piast dynasty..  the polish people revolted against foreign dominance throughout the 19 th centaury. Poland was formally reconstituted in November 1918

Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, soviet troops invaded from the east on September. 17, and on September 28 a German soviet agreement divided Poland. All of Poland was occupied by the Nazis after the Nazi attack on the USSR in June Nazi Germanys occupation policy in Poland was designed to eradicate polish culture through mass executions and to exterminate the countries large Jewish minority.

 Marie Sklodowska-Curie achieved international recognition in Paris for her scientific discoveries.  Along with her husband-Pierre Curie, she began a search for the source of radioactivity and discovered two highly radioactive elements: radium and polonium. For her outstanding discovery, she became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in But that wasn't the end of her achievements.  The continuity of her work on radioactive elements resulted in her winning another Nobel Prize in 1911 for chemistry, for isolating radium and studying its chemical properties. Marie Curie died due to leukaemia, a disease which is now known to be caused by exposure to the penetrating radiation. Call it irony or not, but she died from the radium that made her famous.

 Poland is a widely recognized country thanks to our Pope John Paul II. Born as Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, he reigned as Pope from 1978 until In the years of his pontificate he spoke against such issues as: war, abortion, racism, materialism and many more.  He was a strong advocate of spreading love and peace all around the world. As a Pope he travelled extensively, touching hearts of millions of people by appearing to be one of them, the most down-to-earth human being ever.  He died in 2005 after fighting a long battle with Parkinson's disease,.

Poland has the highest unemployment level in the European Union and has the 3 rd lowest GDP per capita at PPP, after Bulgaria and Romania. Poles have won 12 Nobel prizes till date, including two Peace Prizes, five in Literature, two each in Physics and chemistry, and one in Medicine

Marzenna is a tradition where people weave straw dolls and decorate them with ribbons. These represent the end of winter, and the beginning of spring. When the snow starts to melt, they proclaim the beginning of spring and chuck the Marzennas into the river or stream, symbolically ‘killing’ the winter.

Another Polish astronomer, Johannes Hevelius published the earliest exact maps of the moon.. The most popular name for a dog in Poland is Burek which translates to: “brownish- grey colour”.

 Saint John’s Kupala is a popular holiday in which people jump over fires, a tradition that predates Christianity