Polish people

For a specific analysis of the population of Poland, see Demographics of Poland.
This article is about Poles as an ethnic group. For Polish nationality law or citizenship, see Polish nationality law. For Poles living outside Poland, see Polish diaspora.

Poles
Polacy (Polish)
The flag of Poland, one of the symbols of Polish people
Total population
c. 60 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Poland   37,394,000 (2011)[2]
United States10,600,000 (2015)[1][3][4]
Germany2,253,000 (2018)[5]
Brazil1,800,000 (2007)[6]
Canada1,010,705 (2013)[7]
France1,000,000 (2022)[8][9][10][11]
United Kingdom682,000 (2021)[12][13]
Other countries
Argentina500,000 (2014)[14]
Belarus288,000 (2019)[15]
Australia216,056 (2006)[16]
Israel202,300 (2011) (Polish Jews, not ethnic Poles)[17]
Lithuania183,000 (2021)[18]
Ukraine144,130 (2001)[19]
Ireland112,500 (2018)[20]
Norway108,255 (2019)[21]
Italy97,000 (2016)[6][22]
Sweden75,323 (2012)[23]
Austria69,898 (2015)[24]
Spain63,000 (2019)[25]
Netherlands60,000 (2017)[26]
Belgium49,600 (2019)[25]
Latvia44,783 (2011)[27]
Denmark37,876 (2014)[28]
Kazakhstan34,057 (2018)[29]
South Africa30,000 (2014)[30]
Russia22,024 (2021)[31]
Iceland20,927 (2022)[32]
Czech Republic20,305 (2017)[33]
Hungary20,000 (2018)[6][34]
Switzerland20,000 (2007)[6]
Paraguay16,748 (2012)[35]
Greece15,000 (2019)[25]
United Arab Emirates14,500 (2015)[26]
Chile10,000 (2007)[6]
Mexico10,000 (2007)[6]
Moldova10,000 (2007)[6]
Uruguay10,000 (2007)[6]
Slovakia5,282 (2021)[36]
Portugal4,326[37]
Japan1,762 (2023)[38]
Languages
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholicism[39]
Related ethnic groups
Other West Slavs
Especially other Lechites

Polish people, or Poles,[a] are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation[40][41][42] who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe. The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland, regardless of heritage or ethnicity. The majority of Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism.[39]

The population of self-declared Poles in Poland is estimated at 37,394,000 out of an overall population of 38,512,000 (based on the 2011 census),[43] of whom 36,522,000 declared Polish alone.[2][44][4] A wide-ranging Polish diaspora (the Polonia) exists throughout Eurasia, the Americas, and Australasia. Today, the largest urban concentrations of Poles are within the Warsaw metropolitan area and the Katowice urban area.

Ethnic Poles are considered to be the descendants of the ancient West Slavic Lechites and other tribes that inhabited the Polish territories during the late antiquity period. Poland's recorded history dates back over a thousand years to c. 930–960 AD, when the Western Polans – an influential tribe in the Greater Poland region – united various Lechitic clans under what became the Piast dynasty,[45] thus creating the first Polish state. The subsequent Christianization of Poland by the Catholic Church, in 966 CE, marked Poland's advent to the community of Western Christendom. However, throughout its existence, the Polish state followed a tolerant policy towards minorities resulting in numerous ethnic and religious identities of the Poles, such as Polish Jews.

  1. ^ a b 37.5–38 million in Poland and 21–22 million ethnic Poles or people of ethnic Polish extraction elsewhere. "Polmap. Rozmieszczenie ludności pochodzenia polskiego (w mln)" Archived 30 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b Gudaszewski, Grzegorz (November 2015). Struktura narodowo-etniczna, językowa i wyznaniowa ludności Polski. Narodowy Spis Powszechny Ludności i Mieszkań 2011 (PDF). Warsaw: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. pp. 132–136. ISBN 978-83-7027-597-6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  3. ^ "Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska". Wspolnota-polska.org.pl. Archived from the original on 24 October 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2017.
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  5. ^ Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund - Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus - Fachserie 1 Reihe 2.2 - 2018 Archived 7 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine, page 62, retrieved 29 November 2019.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Polska Diaspora na świecie, Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska, 2007. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  7. ^ "Ethnic Origin (264), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3), Generation Status (4), Age Groups (10) and Sex (3) for the Population in Private Households of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2011 National Household Survey". 8 May 2013. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
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  12. ^ "Population of the United Kingdom by country of birth and nationality, July 2020 to June 2021". ons.gov.uk. Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 3 January 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2023..
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  15. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). www.belstat.gov.by. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. ^ "Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Government". Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  17. ^ "Jews, by Country of Origin and Age". Statistical Abstract of Israel (in English and Hebrew). Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. 26 September 2011. Archived from the original on 5 January 2019. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  18. ^ "2021 censusm". 16 December 2015. Archived from the original on 16 February 2008. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  19. ^ "Ukrainian Census 2001". 2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  20. ^ "Polacy przestali kochać Irlandię. Myślą o powrocie". 17 October 2018. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  21. ^ "Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents". 9 March 2020. Archived from the original on 11 April 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  22. ^ "Maleje liczba Polaków we Włoszech" [The number of Poles in Italy is decreasing]. Naszswiat.net (in Polish). Archived from the original on 3 November 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  23. ^ "Befolkning efter födelseland och ursprungsland 31 december 2012" (in Swedish). Statistics Sweden. 31 December 2013. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  24. ^ http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/menschen_und_gesellschaft//bevoelkerung_am_1.1.2015_nach_detailliertem_geburtsland_und_bundesland-2.pdf [dead link‍]
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  26. ^ a b Wspólnota Polska. "Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska". Wspolnota-polska.org.pl. Archived from the original on 24 October 2013. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
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  28. ^ "Statistics Denmark:FOLK1: Population at the first day of the quarter by sex, age, ancestry, country of origin and citizenship". Statistics Denmark. Archived from the original on 29 November 2019. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  29. ^ "Kazakhstan National Census 2009". Stat.kz. Archived from the original on 18 November 2018.
  30. ^ Wspólnota Polska. "Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska". Wspolnota-polska.org.pl. Archived from the original on 10 August 2018. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  31. ^ "Оценка численности постоянного населения по субъектам Российской Федерации". Federal State Statistics Service. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  32. ^ "Population by country of birth, sex and age 1 January 1998-2022". Statistics Iceland. 2022. Archived from the original on 27 September 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  33. ^ "Foreigners by category of residence, sex, and citizenship as at 31 December 2016". Archived from the original on 12 January 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
  34. ^ Vukovich, Gabriella (2018). Mikrocenzus 2016 - 12. Nemzetiségi adatok [2016 microcensus - 12. Ethnic data] (PDF) (in Hungarian). Budapest. ISBN 978-963-235-542-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 9 January 2019. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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  38. ^ "在留外国人統計" (in Japanese). 15 December 2023. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  39. ^ a b "Niektóre wyznania religijne w Polsce w 2017 r. (Selected religious denominations in Poland in 2017)" (PDF). Mały Rocznik Statystyczny Polski 2018 (Concise Statistical Yearbook of Poland 2018) (in Polish and English). Warszawa: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. 2018. pp. 114–115. ISSN 1640-3630. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 May 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2019. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  40. ^ Historya ksia̜ża̜t i królów polskich krótko zebrana – Teodor Waga – Google Books. J. Zawadzki. 9 July 2020. Archived from the original on 27 September 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  41. ^ Historya krolow i ksiazat polskich krotko zebrana dla lepszego uzytku Wyd ... – Theodor Waga – Google Books. Zupanski. 9 July 2020. Archived from the original on 27 September 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  42. ^ Gerard Labuda. Fragmenty dziejów Słowiańszczyzny zachodniej, t. 1–2 s.72 2002; Henryk Łowmiański. Początki Polski: z dziejów Słowian w I tysiącleciu n.e., t. 5 s.472; Stanisław Henryk Badeni, 1923. s. 270.
  43. ^ Central Statistical Office (January 2013). "The national-ethnic affiliation in the population – The results of the census of population and housing in 2011" (PDF) (in Polish). p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 May 2020. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
  44. ^ Struktura narodowo-etniczna, językowa i wyznaniowa ludności Polski [Narodowy Spis Powszechny Ludności i Mieszkań 2011] (PDF) (in Polish). Warsaw: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. November 2015. pp. 129–136. ISBN 978-83-7027-597-6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  45. ^ Gerard Labuda. Fragmenty dziejów Słowiańszczyzny zachodniej, t.1–2 p.72 2002; Henryk Łowmiański. Początki Polski: z dziejów Słowian w I tysiącleciu n.e., t. 5 p.472; Stanisław Henryk Badeni, 1923. p. 270.


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