Warsaw - geography.

Warsaw - geography. I INTRODUCTION Warsaw, (Polish Warszawa), capital of Mazowieckie Province, capital and largest city of Poland, administrative center of the Mazovia region, located in central Poland on the Wis?a (Vistula) River. More than 90 percent of the city was destroyed during World War II (1939-1945), but the historic Old Town section was painstakingly reconstructed. The monumental Palace of Culture and Science in downtown is Warsaw's leading landmark. With the fall of Communism in 1989 and an economic boom in the 1990s, new office blocks and hotels have transformed the city's skyline. The climate is temperate, with warm summers (July temperatures average a high of 24°C/75°F and a low of 14°C/57°F) and cold winters (January temperatures average a high of 0°C/32°F and a low of -6°C/22°F). Snow is common in the winter and tends to linger. II WARSAW AND ITS METROPOLITAN AREA Warsaw covers an area of 495 sq km (191 sq mi). The city is subdivided into 11 local districts (gminy). The Wis?a bisects the city; major commercial and historic districts are concentrated on the west bank, and residential neighborhoods occupy the sprawling Praga districts on the east bank. Downtown Warsaw encompasses the ?ródmie?cie district on the west bank. North of this is the famous Old Town, which lies at the end of Warsaw's best-known thoroughfare, known as the Royal Way (Trakt Królewski). Along this boulevard, called Krakowskie Przedmie?cie in Old Town, Nowy ?wiat in downtown, and Aleje Ujazdowskie to the south, are some of Warsaw's most famous landmarks: the Polish president's residence, the restored 19th-century Europejski and Bristol hotels, the rebuilt Royal Castle, the mid-17th-century Zygmunt column (a bronze statue of King Zygmunt III atop a tall column), and the Old Town Square. Numerous neoclassical and baroque palaces and churches line the Royal Way, which terminates at the Wilanów Palace on the southern edge of the city. The Holy Cross Church and an early-19th-century statue of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus are both located on Krakowskie Przedmie?cie. Shops and cafes dominate Nowy ?wiat in downtown, while Aleje Ujazdowskie, the southernmost section of the Royal Way, is lined with foreign embassies. The Sejm building, where Poland's parliament meets, is located a block east of Ujazdowskie, just north of Ujazdowski Park. ?azienki, on Ujazdowskie, is one of the city's best-known parks. It features a neoclassical palace constructed for King Stanis?aw II Augustus and a statue of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin built in 1926. In summer, open-air Chopin recitals have been a regular event at the park on Sundays. Central Warsaw is dominated by the Palace of Culture and Science, which occupies an entire city block two blocks west of Nowy ?wiat. At 230 m (750 ft), it was the second tallest building in Europe when it was completed in the 1950s. Nearby on Aleje Jerozolimskie is the Central Station, built in the early 1970s. Other postwar landmarks in downtown include the Marriott-LIM tower and the Hotel Forum. Marsza?kowska, running north-south across the city center, is second only to Nowy ?wiat as a shopping street in Warsaw. Although downtown Warsaw contains some apartment blocks, such buildings are much more noticeable away from the city center. The Old Town was reconstructed to replicate what existed before World War II, but most of the rest of the city was built in a modern, postwar style. Most of Warsaw's residents live in high-rise apartment blocks around the city center. The few parts of the city that escaped wartime destruction--for example the popular east bank (Praga) area known as Saska K?pa--offer less-dense, prewar-type housing. Although the city expanded outward from the 1950s to 1970s, in the 1990s a major wave of reconstruction took place in the city center, with new hotel, office, and condominium blocks erected on cleared sites. Automobile ownership has grown tremendously since Communism fell in 1989, and traffic jams are frequent in Warsaw's underdeveloped road system. There is no beltway around the city; Europe's main east-west highway cuts through the heart of Warsaw, contributing to enormous road wear, air pollution, and traffic problems. There are only a few bridges over the Wis?a, but the inadequate Syrena Bridge was to be replaced by a wider bridge in 2000. In 1995 Warsaw's subway opened. Although it has relieved some congestion, the subway runs only north-south, so it has not eliminated any of the heavy east-west traffic. III POPULATION In 2005 Warsaw had a population of 1,687,600. Warsaw's population declined during World War II, when as many as 670,000 residents died, including the city's 375,000 Jews who were systematically exterminated by the Nazis. Warsaw's population is now ethnically and religiously homogeneous. Most residents are ethnic Poles, and the population is predominantly Roman Catholic, though there is a small minority of Protestants. In the early postwar period, many Poles moved to Warsaw from the countryside. Migration from rural areas has slowed, however, in part because of a lack of housing in Warsaw. IV EDUCATION AND CULTURE Warsaw has made important contributions to European culture. Chopin studied at the musical academy. Chemist and physicist Marie Curie was born Maria Sk?odowska in Warsaw in 1867. Famous writers associated with Warsaw include Boles?aw Prus, whose novel Lalka (1890; The Doll, 1972) is set largely in the city; his contemporary W?adys?aw Reymont, who won the Nobel Prize in 1916; and 20th-century novelists Jerzy Andrzejewski, Marek H?asko, Andrzej Szczypiorski, and Tadeusz Konwicki. Ludwik Zamenhof, who in 1887 invented Esperanto (an artificial international language), was also a Warsaw resident. As the capital of the Russian-controlled Congress Kingdom of Poland (also called the Kingdom of Poland) from 1815 to 1831, Warsaw flourished culturally. The principal institutions of higher education--the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw Agricultural University, and the Warsaw Polytechnic University--were founded during this time. Eventually about 40 other educational institutions and research institutes opened in Warsaw, including the Warsaw School of Economics. Major libraries include the National Library, the Library of Warsaw University, and the Library of Parliament. There are about 30 museums and art galleries. The National Museum has a collection of Polish art from the 14th to the 20th centuries. Wilanów Palace, built in the late 17th century, houses the Poster Museum, and the Center for Contemporary Art is housed in the Ujazdowski Castle. The 19th-century Great Theater stages major ballet and opera performances. Since 1927 Warsaw has hosted the Chopin Piano Competition, which is held every five years. Major annual events include the Henri Wieniawski violin competition (started in 1935); the Warsaw Autumn, a contemporary music festival; and the Jazz Jamboree. The International Book Fair takes place each May in the Palace of Culture and Science. V RECREATION The city's sports facilities are poorly developed. Dziesi?ciolecia Stadium, which was built as a sports stadium in the 1950s, has become the site of a large open-air market. Warsaw does have numerous parks, however, including Belvedere Park, the site of the palace that was home for many Polish heads of state. The Saxon Gardens in the city center were developed in the 18th century. Warsaw Zoo lies in the Praga district. Warsaw has a thriving nightlife. The variety and number of restaurants have increased substantially with the advent of capitalism. VI ECONOMY In addition to serving as Poland's leading administrative center, Warsaw is also a center for science, research, and higher education. Since World War II the city's industrial base has been developed, with diverse plants producing steel, cars, tractors, and consumer electronics. Warsaw is the second most important industrial region in Poland (after Katowice in the south). Warsaw, more than anywhere else in the country, has benefited from the boom in construction and commerce that followed the fall of Communism in 1989. Warsaw's unemployment was negligible in the 1990s (3 percent in 1997 compared with a national average of 11 percent), wages in Warsaw were better than average, and the city is the top destination for foreign investment. For example, an Italian company took over the Warsaw steelworks, a South Korean firm purchased an automobile factory, and a French electronics firm now runs a television plant in Warsaw. Western banks, supermarkets, and hotel chains have invested in Warsaw. Warsaw's economy is now based more on trade, distribution, and services than on manufacturing, which, though still important, is moving to second place. One phenomenon of the 1990s was the explosion of so-called bazaar trade as Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians and others flocked to Warsaw to buy and sell. The market at Dziesi?ciolecia Stadium is Poland's largest and is consistently ranked among the nation's top five export earners. Warsaw is also developing as a center for finance, banking, and consulting. The stock exchange reopened in 1991 after being shuttered for 50 years. Vibrant and expanding cultural activities have also ensured the city's place as a tourist center. Warsaw's most impressive economic feature has been the broad scale of new construction, including hotels, offices, low-rise housing, warehouses, supermarkets, and the subway. The international airport at Ok? cie in the southern part of the city was rebuilt in 1992. Another marked change in Warsaw's economic and cultural life was the sudden development after 1989 of many new private television and radio stations, newspapers, and magazines. VII GOVERNMENT The city is governed by a city council, which elects a city president. Local government elections take place every four years. VIII CONTEMPORARY ISSUES As in other large cities, crime is a significant concern in Warsaw. The city has become a stage on drug-smuggling routes. Small-scale gang warfare and bombings were a steady feature of the 1990s and even appeared to reach a new level of intensity when a former chief of police was murdered outside his home in early 1998. The huge increase in automobile ownership has also become a source of problems. Serious congestion, pollution, and injury from accidents (roads are poor and driving is often reckless) have all increased. IX HISTORY According to legend, Warsaw received its name from two children, Wars and Sawa. Syrenka, a mermaid from the Wis?a, predicted the founding of Warsaw to the pair, who then gave their names to the city. Warsaw was founded around the turn of the 14th century by Duke Boles?aw of Mazovia, then an independent principality. In 1413 Warsaw became the regional capital. At that time its population was about 4,500. The city lay on major trade routes, benefiting from its location on the Wis?a. In 1526, when the last Mazovian prince died without an heir, Warsaw was absorbed into the Polish state. The Sejm, Poland's parliament, began meeting in Warsaw in the 1550s. In 1573, four years after Poland united with Lithuania, the nobility began choosing the king in royal elections on Warsaw's Wola Field. King Zygmunt III transferred the capital of Poland from Kraków to Warsaw in 1596. The move brought Zygmunt closer to the Baltic Sea, where he had territorial ambitions. By 1611 the court and government had completed the move to Warsaw, which remained the capital for the next 200 years. In the mid-17th century Sweden invaded the Polish-Lithuanian state and devastated Warsaw. Russian forces occupied the city several times in the 18th century. Only with Stanis?aw II Augustus, the last king of Poland, did Warsaw undergo major regeneration; from 1764 to 1792 its population nearly quadrupled, rising from 30,000 to 110,000. In 1795, after Poland had been partitioned by Russia, Prussia, and Austria for the third time, Warsaw declined to a provincial town in Prussia. In 1807 French Emperor Napoleon I established the independent Duchy of Warsaw and made the city the region's capital. Warsaw revived as a satellite state and a launching pad for Napoleon's campaign against Russia in 1812. After Napolean's defeat, Warsaw became the capital in 1815 of the Congress Kingdom of Poland, a state under Russian rule. The Poles rebelled against their Russian overlords in 1830. The Russians crushed the revolt and reduced Warsaw to provincial status once more. Nonetheless urban development continued. A permanent fire service was established in 1834, a railway line was built to Vienna in 1848, and in 1859 the first iron bridge across the Wis?a was constructed. After a second failed insurrection in 1863, the Polish kingdom was completely absorbed into the Russian empire. Despite these periods of political upheaval, industrialization continued in Warsaw, and an influx of workers and expansion of the city caused the population to swell to 406,000 by 1885. But it was not until 1918, after Russia's emperor was toppled and the Central Powers lost World War I (1914-1918), that Warsaw once again became capital of an independent Polish state. On the eve of World War II (1939-1945), Warsaw's population had reached more than 1 million. On September 1, 1939, Warsaw was the target of the first German air raids on a major city. After numerous bombing and artillery attacks, the city fell to Nazi troops on September 27. Throughout the war Warsaw was the main center of a rump Polish state, although the Germans intended eventually to reduce Warsaw to a resort solely for German habitation. It was also the center of the Polish underground army. The Germans systematically plundered the city of art treasures, razed national monuments, and terrorized the populace in a calculated plan to annihilate Jewish and Polish identity. In late 1940 the Germans established a walled ghetto less than 2.6 sq km (1 sq mi) in total area and herded Jews from the city and the surrounding region into it. Over the next two and a half years hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced into the ghetto and then sent to concentration camps. In April 1943 the Jews in the ghetto staged a heroic month-long resistance. After the Nazis put down the uprising they destroyed the ghetto, killing or sending to camps all of the remaining inhabitants. Some 500,000 Warsaw-area Jews died in all. On August 1, 1944, as Soviet armies neared the city, the Polish resistance rose against the Germans before finally succumbing in October with some 160,000 fatalities. After the uprising, German troops deported the remainder of the population and deliberately destroyed what remained of the city. Of the city's prewar population only 162,000 survived the war. Soviet and Polish troops entered Warsaw in January 1945. After the war, the capital was rebuilt. Where possible, the original plans were followed in the reconstruction of historic buildings and districts. After 1945, as the key administrative structures were reestablished for the centralized Communist government in Warsaw, the city was rapidly repopulated. By 1956 the city's population again topped 1 million. From the 1950s to the early 1970s Warsaw was the center of political power in Poland, a satellite country of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, or Soviet Union). Warsaw served as the symbolic base for the Soviet-led military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact. As the country hit economic crisis towards the end of the 1970s Warsaw's urban structure began to deteriorate, mirroring the decline in the credibility of the Communist party and the system it represented. After the Communist government collapsed in 1989 and Poland adopted a market economy, Warsaw's economy revived. Contributed By: George Blazyca John Bates Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.