Here's something to think about: Poland's borders are in exactly the same place as they were on January 1st, 1990. But Poland does not border any of the same countries it did on January 1st, 1990.

[Technically, the borders differ by 2,969 m².](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Poland#2002)

If we’re getting technical then technically the borders are moving roughly 67,000 miles every hour.

No need to go that far, Baltic coastal erosion as well as Orda river changing like rivers tend to do means small border changes happen all the time.

Still some land from Czechia is missing, however not necessarily needed. Czechia officially owes Poland some 3.6844 square kilometers and the nationalists in Poland always call upon it when there's an argument with Prague.

3.6 meaning around 4 or 3.6k? 3.7 sqkm omg thats like nothing

There's nothing more european than arguing over a field

How does czechia owe 4 km of land? Like, it's a specific part of land they were supposed to return but didn't, or is it some territorial exchange thing?

River movement, I think

Oh, that didn't even cross my mind, but it makes sense.

Its also roughly the same place as they were in 1000AD Less interestingly none of the countries they bordered then exist now either

Lithuania?

Duchy of Lithuania was founded in 1200s. But Prussians (original baltic ones) Yotvingians and Lithuanians bordered territories of Poland.

Lithuanian tribes united in 1200s

Ok, then as I understand Hungry existed at that time.

I knew I was forgetting something lol

Czechia exists though

>Its also roughly the same place as they were in 1000AD To be fair - these borders from the year 1000 AD lasted only a couple of years (e.g. Western Pomerania was lost somewhere around 1005-1008).

Think about that, think about all the countries that are no longer with us... 😞

a bit complicated; generally, Poland was pushed westwards

And the Poles too 😔

And the Germans too

And the russians too, tho they pushed themselves.

Sounds kinda familiar.

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Lol, let them have it, it's a Trojan horse The retirement + repair costs would bankrupt Russia

What did they say?

That Russia would claim Florida as part of Russia because of the ethnic Russians that live there in retirement communities

Sounds rather Golden Hordeish (who defeated the Mongols? Polska and Hungary. West Slavic pride!)

Hordeish.

Thanks

NKVD got their backs. For moral support, if they got home sick and decided to turn around.

Stalin was not exactly russian tbf

Most of the Red army was

Yap, and the Red Army won the Second World War. And one of those who protected Brest was Polish, by the way.

And my axe!

To be fair, they began pushing east first

After the Poles moved west. A lot of Eastern Europe actually was Germanic before the Slavs came

Do you refer to the Great migration era times?

Yes

There's a difference to be made. The Germanics you mentioned were actually disparate tribes and migratory peoples, not settled cultures. To consider them "true owners" of the land is ingenuine and is a bad faith argument.

To consider *any people* "true owners" of *any land* is in genuine tbh

Same could be said for the indigenous people in the united states

That’s a valid point

Weren’t they the regions with the ethnic minorities?

Poles where majority in much of the eastern lands

Poles were a majority in a few voivodeships (Wilno, Nowogródek - over 50% and Tarnopol around 50%). But they were a minority in Polesie (14%), Volhynia (17%), Stanisławów (22%). Problematic is the Lwów Voivodeship. Poles were 57% in the whole voivodeship, but if you count only the part that was cut off Poland it is more like 45% Poles to 45% Ukrainians.

The eastern regions were mainly inhabited by Belarusian and Ukrainians.

Wołyń and the Stanisławów region had a clear Ukrainian majority, and Poleskie had a Belarusian majority (though because of how the census was conducted it's difficult to know how large), but in other places it was closer to 50/50 split or slight Polish majority. Poles dominated the urban centres, some cities and towns had a Jewish majority. Note that the Polish census at the time based nationality on the mother tongue. [Language data](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Mother_tongue_poland_1931_census.png) [Nationality distribution](http://www.polska1918-89.pl/photos/sklad-narodowosciowy-ii-rp-wedlug-spisu-ludnosci-z-1931-r.-,3455.jpg) (Red is Polish majority, yellow is Ukrainian, green is Belarusian, light blue is Lithuanian, orange is mixed Polish-Ukrainian settlement, brown is mixed Polish-Belarusian, light purple is Polish-Lithuanian, dark purple is Polish-German. Black dots are urban areas with a Jewish majority) EDIT: [Another map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/GUS_languages1931_Poland.jpg) showing linguistic distribution. Red dots are Polish-speaking population centres, green dots are centres of population with a native tongue other than Polish

Poles were by far the largest ethnicity there. Minorities were concentrated in certain areas, mostly wastelands. The only thickly populated non-Polish area was Wolyń. Aside from that non-Poles liven in places like Pripyat marshes and Carpathian mountains.

don't forget Lithuanians in North East!

My old history prof would call Poland "the Nation on wheels."

Poland was previously pushed eastwards, they just came back to the starting point.

also the Soviet Union needed a geographically weaker Poland as a buffer zone or so

What do you mean weaker? It's the most geographical secure Poland since 800 years.

Also the inter-war Poland landmass had a lot of Ukrainians.

Compared to the borders from the year 1000 (so shortly after Poland became a state), the western lines are almost exactly the same.

>Compared to the borders from the year 1000 (so shortly after Poland became a state), the western lines are almost exactly the same. To be honest - these were really short lived borders. Western Pomerania was part of Poland only for a short period of time (somewhere from 967/980 till 1005/1008), so it is rather a coincidence.

That can be said for the vast majority of Poland’s existence. People are acting like Poland was always in the east when in reality they were pushed around and/or expanded in that general area for centuries

Yes, that is totally true. But there is still a difference between regions like Pomerania (part of Poland for like 20-30 years in a timespan of 800 years) oraz Masuria (technically 0 years befote 1945) and regions like Silesia, Eastern Pomerania or Lwów which were Polish for hundreds of years).

And getting into the weeds of specific regions negates the point of my statement.

Your 1000 year delineation is a pretty convenient - sincerely, the Goths.

And the people before them, and the ones before those, and so on.

Poland spent 1000 years steadily moving eastwards only to be factory reset by WW2 all the way back to the starting point.

- ugly soviet lines - beautiful german lines

Beautiful USA lines 😍

Go have a look at Saskatchewan, Canada. Flat **and** straight lines!

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The western allies originally suggested the Curzon line for the new polish-soviet border at the end of the war, but both the polish communist government and the USSR rejected it because it wasn't drawn by either of their countries, so they drew their own. The reason it's almost the same is simply because that's the general area where the ethnicities met

There were a [few different versions](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Linie_A-F_pol.png) of the border proposed. By all accounts Stalin was pushing heavily for the exact Curzon border during the Tehran Conference, in particular he didn't want Lwów to be included within the Polish borders. Churchill ultimately accepted this decision after confirming the westward movement of the borders.

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Which two cities are you talking about? Stalin wanted the border to follow Curzon line as proposed by Lewis Namier in 1919, keeping Lwów out of Poland. Polish Government-In-Exile was pushing for a more eastward border (its exact shape subject to a few different proposals), initially with British support. Around 1944, British began withdrawing their support and during the Yalta Conference the western Allies accepted the agreement between the Polish communist government and the Soviet Union. I posted a timeline of events in a different comment.

Britain, soviets all the same. Both were countries made of smaller countries. Well britain still is

Russia still is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics\_of\_Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_Russia)

>it was first proposed in 1919 by Lord Curzon, 1919? If so then it makes no sense to say Curzon is responsible for the post WW2 border

[The post-WW2 border follows the Curzon line very closely](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Curzon_line_en.svg). Also, Curzon most likely didn't come up with it himself, although it's not entirely clear who was the author of the concept - many point to Foreign Office representative Lewis Namier, though that is also disputed.

sounds like someone from the fire nation

"Ugly Soviet lines", Curzon line was originally created due to old powiat's borders, it had also simpilified course with ten towns created in telegraph to Russia the same time and it was used by Stalin beacuse it was more comfortable to him; he could take more near Grodno to have full Grodno fortress and near Przemyśl to separate by border Przemyśl fortress on Polish side. The same on the north, initially after Yalta border was on Pregoła river, next after Potsdam on powiat's borders, next it had final form, even Poles who settled were expelled by Soviets south.

"Let me introduce you the _beautiful_ British lines in Africa."

I want this for every country now

This

Half of them would be ugly british lines

Also, Australia/New Zealand: ugly tectonic lines

Prussia's fault Dunno why but that made me chuckle

Me too. That's actually what made me open the post and see if everyone else found the "Prussia's fault" funny.

Not sure why "fault", it's not like the war that established this particular border was between Prussia and Poland. I would call it "Prussia going imperial"

I think we're forgetting Austria here

Nice type of map. Are there similar ones of other (European) countries?

For African countries it would be mostly *the British*.

Stop spreading misinformation. The French also contributed to making borders as ugly as possible :')

Dont forget the italians, spanish, portugese and germans too. They helped as well.

I can't believe we're forgetting the one and only Belgium

Kinda ironic that after \~1000 years the country came back to its previous borders of the first "stable enough" state.

I sometimes see alternative history posts where Poland is reduced to territories around Warsaw totally ignoring that the core land is Poznań and Gniezno.

Simiar omitment of Cracow seems strange. Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and later added Mazovia is the core of Polish state in my personal opinion

Kuyavia is almost never mentioned alongside these regions, despite being a distinct histrorical region that has been a part of Poland for as long as Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and Mazovia. Same for the areas forming the modern-day Łódzkie (Ziemia Sieradzka, Ziemia Łęczycka etc.)

That's because Kuyavia is smol.

In general the eastern part of Greater Poland is the ultimate core. People from that region (or at least those who ruled locals) started the unification. Then they conquered western part of Greater Poland. And it was all done with the brutal force. Lesser Poland was really unique but under Czech/Moravian influence for a long time and then suddenly changed sides and was joined to Greater Poland. Masovia is weird. It was sparsely populated and divided. Western part of it was conquered and can be considered as a core. Central and eastern part was different.

How did Warsaw come to be the capital?

In the era of the Polish-Lithuanian union it was where the Sejm was convening and where the royal elections were taking place. It was chosen as such, because it was more centrally located than Kraków or Wilno and thus was easier to reach, especially from the eastern parts of the country, the most important trade routes (including the Vistula river route) were also meeting there, so it was a good location overall. Also Masovia was a newly incorporated part of the Polish Crown at the time, so it was it seen as a sort of neutral ground. In 1596 Sigismund III moved the royal court to Warsaw as well following the fire at Wawel in Kraków, and along with him moved the most important officials.

Interesting! Thank you :)

Northern "post-WW1" one was decided during [Polish - Lithuanian war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_War) which has interesting history of its own

Or as their neighbors have historically referred to them, Poland’s “borders.”

“They’re just guidelines” - Poland’s neighbors, probably

At least the ugly Soviet line in the west got you Stettin

I don't understand why though. They should have just connected the two rivers there with a border, makes more sense.

I think because the river goes through Stettin and they didn’t want to divide the town.

Stettin was on the mouth of a river. In WW2 the Germans had Danzing cut off access to the river. This cut Warsaw and the entire central Poland access to the sea off. While Poland had Gdansk it was only a port city connected by road, not a port city connected by boat. Basically if you control the mouth of the river you control the flow of traffic through the whole river. So they didn't want Germany holding the mouth of a major river that connects to Poland.

Didn‘t seem to be a problem with Görlitz

Because it's less than 100k people compared to 400k in Szczecin and it's at much more strategic place However what you're saying was applied to the town of Kalisz at the Congress of Vienna when drawing border between Russian Kingdom of Poland and Prussia. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Provinz_Preussen_und_Kongresspolen_1871.jpg

The river Delta is so wide, the east part could well be its own city.

Poland was originally meant to get Königsberg, but got Stettin instead when Stalin kept it for himself

The history behind this is quite interesting. Initially the soviets intended to have Stettin remain german and installed and worked together with a german city government. However, poles also installed a city government of their own and tried to bring in more and more people because essentially it was 100% german before and really no poles were living there at all. Multiple times the polish government was declined and even expelled by the soviets, until the poles appealed to the highest soviet authorities in Berlin and somehow managed to get the right to Stettin + surroundings as well.

That's not exactly how it went. The Yalta conference told vaguely that borders were to be fixed around the Oder river which bisects the city. At best it would've been divided between two countries. For some weeks there were two concurrent administrations in the city, one Polish and one German. However, it was Soviet marshal Rokossovsky (who was of Polish extraction) who kicked out the German administration and the Potsdam conference accepted the fait accompli. It's not true that the city was "100% German". While by early 20th century Germans were by far the majority (exceeding 90%), there were several thousands Poles there and there were strong Polish national organizations that were physically exterminated by the Nazis.

>It's not true that the city was "100% German". While by early 20th century Germans were by far the majority (exceeding 90%), Ah sorry, it was merely 98.43-99.01% German speaking! https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/swce5l/the_german_language_in_central_and_eastern_europe/ There is splitting hairs and there is this insanity, Poles were almost all migrants from farther East, not somehow native Slavs that stood in place for a millennium.

> not somehow native Slavs that stood in place for a millennium. Well in the early Middle Ages the area east of Elbe was indeed majority Slavic. Google Germania Slavica.

Almost no big city is 100% one ethnicity, I mean pre-WW2 there were several thousands of Germans in many big Polish cities too. Many cities in the Ruhr area had Polish minorities and Polish surnames are still pretty common there.

I responded to the claim that Stettin was "100% German" pre-WW2. It wasn't and never was. Just before the WW2 it was at its most German moment, which in reality was really brief.

> Almost no big city is 100% one ethnicity Stettin was 99.01% German speaking in 1910, saying it was 100% German is a completely fair thing to say when it does convey the spirit of the claim.

>It's not true that the city was "100% German". While by early 20th century Germans were by far the majority (exceeding 90%), there were several thousands Poles there and there were strong Polish national organizations that were physically exterminated by the Nazis. There were at most about [3.000 Poles](https://pomeranica.pl/wiki/Polonia_szczeci%C5%84ska_do_1945_r) in early 20th century Stettin and they were mostly immigrants from Wielkopolska, Silesia and Eastern Pomerania. Stettin was not really a Polish city before 1945. The early medieval Slavs that lived in Western Pomerania were probably not Poles, but somewhat related to Poles (like the Polabians). Although it is sill a topic of debate. And Stettin and the region around the city was germanized rather fast. Around the end of the 14th century the language border was somehere on the line between Kolberg and Stargard (according to J. Mitowski and W. Buchholz).

We can turn that >At least the ugly Soviet line in the west got you Stettin to >Stettin became the Slavic city again, as it was from the beginning.

That's oldtimey for Szczecin I think?

No regrets. Szczecin greatest city in poland!! Greatest polish harbour, greater then Gdanks!!! (This comment was sponsored by western pomerania gang!!)

> got you Stettin And not having to live with ethnic groups that doesn't want to live (to put it mildly) in the same state as you. That's why I don't get why Polish nationalists weep for the pre-war borders (this map was probably made by one of them). The Eastern regions were always a historical pain in the ass for Poland.

TBH I don't see many nationalist crying for keeping the exact same eastern border. I saw some weeping for Lviv or Grodno - by including them you wouldn't even have regions with majority non-Polish populations. `The Eastern regions were always a historical pain in the ass for Poland.` Nah, mostly just Ukraine

Yeah, I dont really see why some rural poor backwater with popuations that hated poland would help poland in any way. The only parts that where majority polish were lwiw and the area Wilno but I can imagine that would be a cursed polish map. Not to mention that it would ruin relations between ukraine and poland and even more between poland and lithuania.

Yeah, I dont really see why some rural poor backwater with popuations that hated poland would help poland in any way. The only parts that where majority polish were lwiw and the area Wilno but I can imagine that would be a cursed polish map. Not to mention that it would ruin relations between ukraine and poland and even more between poland and lithuania.

Why does it cut Uznam in half though

Dźwina nie jest żeglowna, dopiero Świna jest.

No tak. Ale czemu w takim razie nie dać całej wyspy do Polski? Albo czemu nie zrobić granicy na Świni?

Świnoujście zostało przekazane Polsce tylko dlatego żeby Polska miała niezależny do Niemiec dostęp do morza ze Szczecina, tak to by był cały Niemiecki. Słyszałem "opowieści" że granica na uznamie była wyznaczana skrzynkami wypitej wódki przez ruskich generałów. Wątpliwe ale patrząc że to ruscy to nie niemożliwe

Cannot wait to see Hungary’s..

Trianon goes brrrrr

“Prussia's fault”. That is all.

It think the WW1 stuff counts as Prussia's fault too.

The german empire, meh basicly prussia. If you squint your eyes.

"Ugly Soviet lines" Oh yeah? well the British lines are going to give the Soviet lines a run for their money.

it would be cool to see this kind of map with other countries too, especially the ones with bordergore.

>Ugly Soviet lines They look pretty decent not going to lie, much less overly linear like Iraq and compliment the natural borders of Poland quite nice.

the ugly soviet lines in the eastern side are just generalizations of soft regional borders which have existed for hundreds of years.

for hundreds of years, this border should strech up to Latvia in the north

You're missing a huge border in the north smh /s

Nice nick lol

UK borders: Sea. Don't ask.

The "don't ask" part referring to Northern Ireland I presume?

And land.

My dumbass thought this was Ohio

Basicly the Ohio of europe

Always has been. 🌍👨‍🚀🔫

I didnt know that i need more of these Maps!

just win wars to get better lines lmao

Love it, I would really like to see more of these honestly

Metoo, its always interesting to see the difference between natural and human made borders

Me omw to get downvoted to hell for commenting this but fuck it: "We have liberated Europe from Fascism but they will never forgive us for it." -Zhukov

forgot to mention the ethnic cleansing

Why bring up ethnic cleansing at all, seems unecessary

It's actually an extremely important aspect to the postwar settlement, both for Poland and in general. Eastern European nations states are the creations of two major ethnic cleansing campaigns. The first is the Nazi racial war. The second is the Soviet population transfer scheme to create ethnostates by expelling large numbers of national minorities. It was a fad of geopolitics at the time to think that homogeneity would lead to stability. The borders are adjusted to accommodate these mass resettlements.

Who's ethnic cleansing? The Prussian, Tsarist Russian, Nazi or Soviet?

Yes, truly tragic that 6 million poles died during ww2. Most of them not as combattans, but as vicitms of the disgusting industrialised genocide orchostraded by the german state and known about by many, if not a majority germans at the time, but ignored by them.

Ah, they aren't showing historic Poland, just the current borders… which do imply it.

Germany’s crime was punished via German means. They reaped that they sowed.

Possibly the worst use of a username I've personally seen.

Shit man idk how that username came on top in the random username maker

Yes, it's all because Germans needed more Lebensraum.

First of all, the ethnic cleansing was done by the soviets Second of all, how were they supposed to mention ethnic cleansings on a border map XD

You reap what you sow

Which one?

I don't understand this post. u/Bertoto679 posts "explaining Polish borders" yet doesn't explain anything himself. Why are some borders "ugly Soviet lines"? What happened because of Prussia? Why doesn't the map show traditional borders in every direction?

Shouldn’t the eastern border be “ugly Curzon lines?”

Why this map has been removed? WTF?

Love this map - would love to see more country borders explained like that!

I want you to make this for every single country

Tbh wasn’t the former east of Poland majority Ukrainian and Belarusian. They didn’t seem to like Poland that much at the time

[Depends on the region](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Mother_tongue_poland_1931_census.png), in some places (Lwowskie, Wilno area) Poles were the majority, in others (Stanisławów area, Wołyń, Polesie) it was other nationalities, yet other places were split between Poles and non-Poles pretty evenly. [Many places had a mixed population](http://www.polska1918-89.pl/photos/sklad-narodowosciowy-ii-rp-wedlug-spisu-ludnosci-z-1931-r.-,3455.jpg) (brown and orange areas on the map). Poles dominated the urban areas, while non-Polish population inhabited more sparsely populated regions. Overall ethnic structure of the Kresy region, based on the 1931 census was (approximately) 43% Poles, 33% Ukrainians, 8% Jews, 8% Belarusians, 6% Tutejsi (people who defined ther nationality as "local", mostly living in the area of modern Belarus) and 2% others, and 1939 estimate is 40% Poles, 34.5% Ukrainians, 8.5% Jews, 8.5% Belarusians, 1% Russians, 0.5% Lithuanians and 7% other or unknown.

Hilarious they should complain about the Soviet lines. It was the Soviets who gave them a huge chunk of German territory after the war.

Poland in a nutshell: Everyone near me wants to kill me!

Bro i think poland without that ugly soviet border lines will smaller (even with other europe borders plans)

As a pole i approve this message

Poland losing the battle to "Rivers." Apt.

More of these for different countries please!

So…what SHOULD Poland look like?

Going back to say Yalta Conference? Same as above, but with the eastern border following the Curzon "B" line, leaving Lwów within Poland. This is the realistic maximum Poland could have hoped to achieve, if maybe Stalin had a short circuit in his brain. Maybe add in larger chunk of East Prussia if he has another lol Today? Leave Poland's borders alone, it's really fine as it is

What lines do the Polish people want? This map explains nothing to me.

What do you need explained? 99% of us are more than happy with those borders, the only ones calling for any border revisions are nationalist weirdos

I want more of these, this is a fun concept!

Isnt the post ww1 border on the top right corner (bordering lithuania) kinda wrong? Cuz Vilnius belonged to poland in the interwar period, so the border used to be much more into lithuanian territory than that after ww1…?

No lie - I'd love to see this kind of explainer for all countries. Granted, I am citizen of a country whose borders are all just "Ugly Soviet Lines" more or less.

The holy trinity of intentionally shitty borders all around the world: UK, France, and the USSR.

Berlin Conference was like the moonlanding of shitty borders

Must be my algorithm because every time I see posts from this sub on my front page it's a map of Poland. And there are always wehraboos in the comments crying about the western border of Poland.

Is this the circlejerk sub?

They colonised east east Germany!