Capitol, Language & Currency of Poland

Capitol

Warsaw has been the capital of Poland from 1596 to 1794 and again since 1918. For much of the Middle Age, the area in which you now find Warsaw was the Duchy of Mazovia, a sparsely populated region, loosely subject to the Polish crown. The city of Warsaw was founded in the second half of the 13th century.


Warsaw, known in Polish as Warszawa, is not only the capital; but, is also the largest city in Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains.

The population is 1.708 million (Dec 31, 2011), has it has an area of 199.6 sq miles (517 Km).


Language

Polish is the official language of Poland. It is also used as a second language in some parts of Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. This phenomenon is caused by migrations and resettlement's as well as border changes brought by the Yalta agreement after World War II. As a result, lots of Poles were left outside Poland. Polish is spoken by Polish first generation emigrants living all around the world, however their children and grandchildren know it only as a second language. The total number of speakers worldwide is estimated at 50 million.


Currency 

The Polish currency is the Zloty. This currency is denoted with the currency sign " z" and the ISO 4217 Code for the Polish Zloty is PLN. It is divided into 100 smaller units called Grosz.

The constitution of Poland provides that the Poland government shall have the power to print the Polish Zloty and Grosz coins to be used as a legal tender in Poland. The Polish Zloty bank notes and Grosz coins are both designated as "legal tender" in payment of debts.