Second Polish Republic - Geography

Geography

The Second Polish Republic was mainly flat, with average elevation of 223 m above sea level (after World War II and its border changes, the average elevation of Poland decreased to 173 m). Only 13% of territory, along the southern border, was higher than 300 m. The highest elevation was Mount Rysy, which rises 2,499 m in the Tatra Range of the Carpathians, 95 km south of Kraków. Between October 1938 and September 1939, the highest elevation was Lodowy Szczyt (known in the Slovakian language as Ľadový štít), which rises 2,627 meters above sea level. The largest lake was Lake Narach.

The country's total area, after annexation of Zaolzie, was 389,720 km2, it extended 903 km from north to south and 894 km from east to west. On January 1, 1938, total length of boundaries was 5,529 km, including:

• 140 kilometers of coastline (out of which 71 kilometers were made by the Hel Peninsula),
• 1412 kilometers with Soviet Union,
• 948 kilometers with Czechoslovakia (until 1938),
• 1912 kilometers with Germany (together with East Prussia),
• 1081 kilometers with other countries (Lithuania, Romania, Latvia, Danzig).

Among major cities of the Second Polish Republic, the warmest yearly average temperature was in Kraków (9.1°C in 1938) and the coldest in Wilno (7.6°C in 1938).