Poland: Flag and Facts

About Poland

The pairing is borrowed from the Polish coat of arms, a white eagle set on a red field. That crowned white eagle remains the national symbol, and white and red are the official national colors.

Polish statehood took shape around the middle of the 10th century, and the traditional founding date is 14 April 966, when the country adopted Christianity. Four centuries later, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth controlled a huge stretch of Central and Eastern Europe. Russia, Prussia, and Austria then carved Poland up between 1772 and 1795. Independence returned on 11 November 1918, but Germany and the Soviet Union overran the country in World War II, and it spent the postwar decades as a Soviet satellite. Strikes in 1980 gave birth to Solidarity, a union that grew past 10 million members and won free elections in 1989 and 1990. NATO membership followed in 1999, and EU membership in 2004.

Did you know?

• Constitution Day on 3 May honors a constitution adopted in 1791.
• Rysy, the tallest peak in Poland, stands 2,499 meters high.
• Poland's anthem is "Mazurek Dabrowskiego," or Dabrowski's Mazurka.