Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:22, 25 May 2008

Poles

Skłodowska-Curie • Pope John Paul II • Chopin • Copernicus Wałęsa • Kościuszko • Wajda Piłsudski
Total population
60 million (est.)
Regions with significant populations
Poland	38,860,000
United States	9,385,233
Brazil	1,500,000
Germany	1,055,700
Canada	820,000
Belarus	400,000
Argentina	500,000
United Kingdom	500,000 (est.)
Lithuania	250,000
Russia	173,000
Australia	150,900
Ukraine	144,130
Norway	120,000
Ireland	63,090
Latvia	57,000
Czech Republic	52,000
Italy	50,790
Mexico	50,000
Kazakhstan	47,293
Netherlands	39,500
Austria	21,000
Iceland	7,000
Turkey	5,000
Template:Country data World Rest of World	1,145,000 (est.)
Languages
Polish
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic, with Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, and Protestant Polish minorities

The Polish people, or Poles, (Template:Lang-pl) are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic. The Poles can also be referred to as the inhabitants of the Republic of Poland and Polish emigrants irrespective of their ethnicity. A wide-ranging Polish diaspora exists throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas and Australia.

There is no commonly accepted definition of the Polish people. According to the preamble of the Constitution of Poland, the Polish Nation consists of all citizens of Poland. However, like in most European countries, many people limit the group to native speakers of the Polish language, people that share certain views or traditions, or people who share a common ethnic background originating from Poland. As to its origins, the name of the nation comes from a western Slavic ethnic group of Polans primarily associated with Poland and the Polish language. Poles belong to the Lechitic subgroup of these ethnic people. The Polans of Giecz, Gniezno, and Poznań were one of the most influential tribes of Greater Poland and managed to unite many other West Slavic tribes in the area under the rule of what became the Piast dynasty, thus giving birth to a new state. The Polish word for a Polish person is Polak (male) and Polka (female), however, when this common noun is used verbatim in the English language (usually spelled as Polack) it is always offensive.

Statistics

Poles or Polish are the sixth largest national group in Europe. Estimates vary depending on source, though available data suggests a total number around 60 million people worldwide (with approx. 21 million living outside of Poland). There are almost 39 million Poles in Poland alone. There are also autochthonous Polish minorities in the surrounding countries including Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. There are some smaller minorities in nearby countries such as Moldova and Latvia. There is also a Polish minority in Russia which included autochthonous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after WWII; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million.

The term "Polonia" is usually used in Poland to refer to people of Polish origin who live outside Polish borders, officially estimated at around 10-12 to 20 million. There is a notable Polish diaspora in the United States (Polish-American), Canada, (Polish Canadians) and Brazil (see Polish Brazilian). France has a special relationship with Poland and has a relatively large Polish-descendant population, though Poles lived in France since the late 1700s. In the early 20th century, over a million Polish people came to France, mostly hired contract laborers during WWI and Polish émigrés fleeing either Nazi occupation and later Soviet rule.

In the United States a significant number of Polish immigrants settled in Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Orlando, and Buffalo. The majority of Polish Canadians arrived to Canada since WWII, the number of Polish immigrants peaked after 1945 to 1970 but on the rise again since the fall of Communism in 1989. In recent years, since joining the European Union, many Polish people have emigrated to countries such as Ireland; where an estimated 200,000 Polish people have entered the labor market. It is estimated that three quarters of a million Polish people have immigrated to the United Kingdom.

Polish tribes

The following is the list of Polish tribes - tribes which constituted the lands of Poland in the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the Polish state. Some of them have remained a separate ethnicity while others have been assimilated into the culture of Poland.

European Union

(for ethnic Poles living abroad see Polonia, for those living and working in the United Kingdom see Polish British)

A survey carried out by the CBOS public opinion institute, between March 30 and April 2, 2007, found that 86% of Poles felt that EU membership had had a positive effect, with only 5% of the respondents speaking against it, down from 22 percent in 2004. The institute also found that 55% of those surveyed prefer the EU to remain a union of sovereign states, while 22% supported the idea of a "United States of Europe". Principal areas of Polish life that have been improved by EU membership, are agriculture (according to 75% of those surveyed), the environment (61%), productivity (57%) and unemployment (56%).

Among the ten new EU members, of which eight are Central or Eastern European, Poles are the most mobile, with considerable numbers of Polish migrants found in almost all ‘old’ EU countries, filling numerous vacancies on the European labour market, especially in areas where indigenous workforce is insufficient. According to Franck Duvell of Oxford, some countries, like Germany and Austria, missed on that opportunity by discriminating against mobile Europeans, granting them freedom of movement without freedom of employment, which resulted in the increase of numbers of illegal migrant workers there. “In fact, the EU accession process, and namely the Polish experience could possibly serve as a paradigm for easing some of Europe’s migration dilemma,” Duvell suggested.

Notes

1. ^ Świat Polonii, witryna Stowarzyszenia Wspólnota Polska: „Polacy za granicą” (Polish people abroad as per summary by Świat Polonii, internet portal of the Polish Association Wspólnota Polska)
2. Excel spreadsheet from Polish Central Statistical Office
3. Poles in US The Template:PDFlink by the US Census Bureau estimates 9,385,233 people claiming Polish ancestry.
4. O número de integrantes das principais comunidades no Brasil que têm origem em países candidatos à União Européia
5. Template:De icon Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund - Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2005 Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland (German text about migrants in Germany) Template:PDFlink.
6. List of Canadians by ethnicity
7. Poles in Belarus
8. Poles in Argentina
9. Template:En icon Poles in the UK, Polish Express, source: government statistics.
   ^ Template:Pl icon According to Tomasz Ziemba from Polish Express online 1,020,000 Polish visitors in the UK logged into Polish chatroom Gadu–Gadu in January: Policzyło nas Gadu–Gadu
   ^ Template:Pl icon Tomasz Wybranowski, Korespondencja, Tygodnik Przegląd, 22.08.2007, onet.pl
   ^ Template:En icon Steve Doughty, Daily Mail, Office for National Statistics recorded the number of Poles who have travelled to the UK in 2006 at over 2,000,000. The number of those who stay exceeds 250,000.
10. Poles in Lithuania
11. Template:PDFlink
12. Poles in Ukraine
13. Aftenposten.no: - 120.000 polakker i Norge (Innenriks)
14. Poles in Ireland
15. CIA World Factbook
16. Template:PDFlink
17. Poles in Italy
18. Poles in Mexico
19. Template:PDFlink
20. Template:PDFlink
21. Template:PDFlink
22. www.hagstofa.is
23. www.polonezkoy.com
24. Poles around the World (>polonia > statystyka)
25. NationMaster.com 2003-2008. People Statistics: Population (most recent) by country Accessed 2008-01-25
26. Gil Loescher, Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis, published by Oxford University Press US, 1993, 1996. ISBN 0195102940. Accessed 12-12-2007.
27. EU Business, 21 June 2007, Poles more pro-EU than ever: survey Accessed 12-06-2007.
28. EU Business, 02 May 2007, Three years after entering the EU, 86% of Poles are satisfied
29. Franck Duvell, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, Oxford, Template:PDFlink, accessed 12-06-2007.

See also

External links

• History of Polish war veterans being admitted to Canada after World War II
• Federation of Poles in Great Britain
• Firmy i Organizacje Polonijne (Polonia Directory: Firms, Companies and Organizations)
• Polish Heritage Trust of New Zealand
• Polacy w Wielkiej Brytanii, Polish Community in the UK

• Ethnic groups in Poland
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• Ethnic groups in Russia
• Polish people
• Slavic nations