Historical Population
For more details on this topic, see Historical demography of Poland.For many centuries, until the end of World War II, the Polish population was composed of many significant ethnic minorities. The population of Poland decreased due to the losses sustained during the Holocaust, and became one of the most ethnically homogeneous in Europe as a result of radically altered borders after the war. The subsequent repatriations were accompanied by two waves of forced migrations ordered by the Soviet and Polish communist authorities, including the transfers of sizable Polish population from the prewar territories of Eastern Poland, which today are divided between Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, the transfer of ethnic Ukrainians back to USSR, and the Germans to Germany from lands ceded to Poland after the Yalta Conference.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Poland
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or population:
“Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody’s mom in that she knows what’s best for us. But if you look at the historical record—Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages—you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.”
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)