#dotmap

Where do Poles live?

There is no one simple answer to that. Most Poles live in the cities, although the middle class is gradually moving to the suburbs. Most Poles live in the South, in very densely populated regions of Upper Silesia and Lesser Poland, although since 1989 the emerging Warsaw's financial hub attracts more and more young Poles.

This dot map shows distribution of Poles as recorded on March 31, 2011 - the day of 2011 National Census. One dot depicts 50 people and aggregation level is census tract.

Language dotmap of 1931 Poland

Back in the interwar period Poland was one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Europe. Minorities made up 31% of population. Ukrainians, Belarussians and Ruthenians were concentrated mostly in the East, Germans lived in the West and Lithuanians populated the northernmost counties. Poland has also a very large Jewish community, concentrated mostly in larger cities. Warsaw alone was home to over 300,000 Jews, making it the largest Jewish city in the world second to New York City only.

Kamień Koszyrski county in was the most non-Polish county, with just 7.05 percent citizens claiming speaking Polish at home, followed closely by Drohiczyn and Kosów counties with 7.06 and 7.16 percent population speaking Polish respectively, all three in Polesie Voivodeship. There were 68 majority-minority counties in Poland (out of 261) populated by 8.6 million people (or 27.1 percent of total population).