Poland lies in the central part of the European continent, the geometrical centre of which is near Warsaw. This is where the lines from Nordkyn in Norway to Matapan in Greece, and from Cabo da Roca in Portugal to the central Urals intersect. The boundary between the East and West European continental masses also runs through Poland.
Poland's total surface area is 322,500 sq km (312,600 sq km of land, 1,200 sq km of inland waters, and 8,700 sq km of territorial waters). This makes it the ninth largest country in Europe, after Russia, Ukraine, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Norway, and the 63rd largest in the world.
The country has a roughly circular shape with a characteristic narrow spit of land, the Hel Peninsula, jutting out 34 km into the Baltic Sea, with an average breadth of just 500 m. Poland's geometrical centre lies some 20 km north-east of Lódz. The maximum north-to-south and west-to-east distances are 649 km and 689 km respectively.
To the west, Poland has a border of 467 km with Germany, to the south with the Czech Republic (790 km) and Slovakia (541 km); to the east and north-east with Ukraine (529 km), Belarus (416 km), Lithuania (103 km) and Russia (210 km). The total length of Poland's land and sea borders is 3,496km.
CLIMATE
Poland has a moderate climate with both maritime and continental elements. This is due to humid Atlantic air which collides over its territory with dry air from the Eurasian interior. As a result, the weather tends to be capricious and the seasons may look quite different in consecutive years. This is particularly true for winters, which are either wet, of the oceanic type, or - less often - sunny, of the continental type. Generally, in north and west Poland the climate is predominantly maritime, with gentle, humid winters and cool, rainy summers, while the eastern part of the country has distinctly continental climate with harsh winters and hotter, drier summers.
