POLAND

Poland is a large country in Central Europe bordered by Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia, with a northern coastline along the Baltic Sea. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and was partitioned entirely out of existence between Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the late 18th century, only re-emerging as an independent state in 1918 after more than a century of foreign rule.

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