Poles
Polish people are the sixth largest national group in the European Union. Estimates vary depending on source, though available data suggest a total number of around 60 million people worldwide (with roughly 21 million living outside of Poland, many of whom are not of Polish ethnicity, but Polish nationals). There are almost 38 million Poles in Poland alone. There are also Polish minorities in the surrounding countries including (Germany), and indigenous minorities in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, northern and eastern Lithuania, western Ukraine, and western Belarus. There are some smaller indigenous minorities in nearby countries such as Moldova. There is also a Polish minority in Russia which includes indigenous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million.
Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans
A 2005 study in Poland reported the data of Polish government indicated that about 4 million Germans remained on Polish territory in mid-1945, out of the pre-war population of about 10 million. The remaining balance were killed in the war, held as POWs or had fled to Germany in the final months of the war. By 1950, about three million persons had been deported from Poland and 1.1 million persons were verified as Polish citizens.