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 history of Poland
7. Population gain Recovered Territories Germans remaining in Poland after the war in the Recovered Territories. This group included 1,130,000 bi-lingual Polish-German persons who declared their allegiance to Poland. Also remaining in 1950 were 94,000 German nationals, 36,000 Germans from pre-war Danzig and 1,500 ethnic Germans of other nations. Most of this group emigrated to Germany after 1956. The ethnic German population remaining in the 1990s was about 300,000.