Demographics of Poland
According to the 2011 census by the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS), at the end of 2011 Poland had a population of 38,538,447, which translates into an average population density of 123 people/km (urban 1105 per 1 km², rural 50 per 1 km²). 61.5% of the Polish population lives in urban areas, a number which is slowly diminishing. Poland is the 33rd most populous country in the world (9th in Europe, with 5.4% of the European population). Total population of Poland is almost stagnant (population growth was 0.08%). Average life expectancy was 70.5 for men and 78.9 for women. In 2009, it was expected to be 73.1 for men and 79.5 for women. Population distribution is uneven. Ethnically, Poland is a very homogeneous country, with 96.7% of population being Polish.
History of Poland (1939–1945)
The new western and northern territories of Poland were repopulated with Poles "repatriated" from the eastern regions now in the Soviet Union (2–3 million people) and from other places. The precise Soviet-Polish border was delineated in the Polish–Soviet border agreement of 16 August 1945. The new Poland emerged 20% smaller (by 77,700 km² or 29,900 mi²) in comparison to the 1939 borders. Eastern poorly developed regions were lost and western industrialized regions were gained, but the emotional impact for many Poles was clearly negative. The population transfers included also the moving of the Ukrainians and the Belarusians from Poland into their respective Soviet republics. In particular, the Soviet and Polish communist authorities expelled between 1944 and 1947 nearly 700,000 Ukrainians and Lemkos, transferring most of them into Soviet Ukraine, and then spreading the remaining groups in the Polish Recovered Territories during the Operation Vistula, thus ensuring that postwar Poland would not have significant minorities or any minority concentrations to contend with. Thousands were killed in the attendant strife and violence. After the war, many displaced Poles and some of those living in Kresy, now in the Soviet Union, did not end up in Poland as reestablished in 1945. The population within the respective official Polish borders decreased from 35.1 million in 1939 to 23.7 million in 1946.