Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska, is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a separate culture featuring diverse architecture, folk costumes, dances, cuisine, traditions and a rare Lesser Polish dialect. The region is rich in historical landmarks, monuments, castles, natural scenery and UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Żywiec is a town on the River Soła in southern Poland with 31,194 inhabitants (2019). It is situated within the Silesian Voivodeship, near the Żywiec Lake and Żywiec Landscape Park, one of the eight protected areas in the voivodeship. Historically, the town has been part of the Lesser Poland region and is the capital of the Żywiecczyzna region, which is ethnically part of the Goral Lands.
Podhale is Poland's southernmost region, sometimes referred to as the "Polish Highlands". The Podhale is located in the foothills of the Tatra range of the Carpathian mountains. It is the most famous region of the Goral Lands which are a network of historical regions inhabited by Gorals.
Border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia began in 1918 between the Second Polish Republic and First Czechoslovak Republic, both freshly created states. The conflicts centered on the disputed areas of Cieszyn Silesia, Orava Territory and Spiš. After World War II they broadened to include areas around the cities of Kłodzko and Racibórz, which until 1945 had belonged to Germany. The conflicts became critical in 1919 and were finally settled in 1958 in a treaty between the Polish People's Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
The Gorals, also known as the Highlanders are an ethnographic subgroup primarily found in their traditional area of southern Poland, northern Slovakia, and in the region of Cieszyn Silesia in the Czech Republic, where they are known as the Silesian Gorals. There is also a significant Goral diaspora in the area of Bukovina in western Ukraine and in northern Romania, as well as in Chicago, the seat of the Polish Highlanders Alliance of North America.
Wedding of the Weddings is an annual meeting of couples who had non-alcoholic wedding receptions. The meetings have taken place in various cities of Poland since 1995. The couples come together with their children to have an all-night-long non-alcoholic dancing party, to exchange experience on organizing non-alcoholic parties for children, youth and adults and just to spend several days together enjoying the local culture.
Polish dialects are regional vernacular varieties of the Polish language.
Polish historic regions are regions that were related to a former Polish state, or are within present-day Poland, with or without being identified in its administrative divisions.
Mazowsze is a famous Polish folk dance and song ensemble. It is named after the Mazowsze region of Poland.
Polish Uplanders, form a distinctive subethnic group of Poles that mostly live in the Central Beskidian Range of the Subcarpathian highlands. The Polish Uplanders inhabit the central and the southern half of the Beskids in Poland, including the Ciężkowickie, Strzyżowskie and Dynowskie Plateau as well as Doły Jasielsko-Sanockie, from the White River (Biała) in the west to the San River in the east.
A parzenica is a heart-shaped traditional handicraft pattern and decorative folk art of the Goral people, who live in the mountainous region of southern Poland. It is often found embroidered on the upper front side of men's trousers.
Polish folk dances are a tradition rooted in ten centuries of Polish culture and history. Many of the dances stem from regional customs and historical events and are distinct from Czech, Slovak and Germanic styles. National dances include formal ballroom or ballet elements. Nowadays, the dances are only performed during major events, holidays or in tourist-oriented public spaces.
Polish wine viticulture and origins have a history dating back to the nation's founding in the tenth century under the Piast dynasty. Like other old world wine producers, many traditional grape varieties still survive in Poland, perfectly suited to their local wine hills. The most popular varieties of grapes for the production of red wine are Regent, Rondo, Pinot Noir, Maréchal Foch, Cabernet Cortis, Tryumf Alzacji, Cascade, and Dornfelder. For white wine production, Solaris, Riesling, Seyval Blanc, Pinot Gris, Johanniter, Jutrzenka, Hibernal, Aurora, Bianka, Traminer, and Siberia are mostly used. Following the Second World War, most wineries were nationalized under the Polish People's Republic communist regime. After the collapse of communism and return to capitalism, the market economy returned, international wine companies moved back in and a period of consolidation followed. Modern wine-production methods have taken over in the larger wineries, and EU-style wine regulations have been adopted, guaranteeing the quality of the wine. Today, wine production in Poland is an industry with 151 officially registered wineries to sell and produce grape table wines in Poland as defined by the national wine laws that came into being in 2008 and were updated later on.
Mazovia or Masovia is a historical region in mid-north-eastern Poland. It spans the North European Plain, roughly between Łódź and Białystok, with Warsaw being the unofficial capital and largest city. Throughout the centuries, Mazovia developed a separate sub-culture featuring diverse folk songs, architecture, dress and traditions different from those of other Poles.
The Lesser Polish dialect is a cluster of regional varieties of the Polish language around the Lesser Poland historical region. The exact area is difficult to delineate due to the expansion of its features and the existence of transitional subdialects.
Cracovians are an ethnographic subgroup of the Polish nation, who resides in the historic region of Lesser Poland around the city of Kraków. They use their own dialect, which belongs to the Lesser Polish dialect cluster of the Polish language, and are mostly Roman Catholic.
The Cieszyn Vlachs are a Silesian ethnographic group living around the towns of Cieszyn and Skoczów, one of the four major ethnographic groups in Cieszyn Silesia, the one mostly associated with wearing Cieszyn folk costume but not the only one speaking Cieszyn Silesian dialect. The name, "Vlachs", is probably not directly associated with that group but was coined by adjacent groups as a nickname.
Folk costumes from Podhale region - costumes wear by Highlanders (Gorals) in Polish area of the Tatra Mountains, Podhale region. Unlike other regional groups in Poland, Highlanders from Podhale wear traditional outfit on a daily basis. This type of outfit is widely considered one of the Polish national costumes.
