Administrative divisions of Poland, 1944–1998. The study on Polish territories in the 19th and the 20th centuries

Abstract

In the 20th century many territorial reforms were introduced. The reforms in 1918 were problematic due to the re-creation of Polish independent state after more than a century of partitions by Austria-Hungary, the German, and the Russian Empires. After 1945 the estab-lishment of new administrative units was still a difficult issue since again the government had to take new Polish borders into consideration before making a decision. The adminis-trative changes between 1945 and 1946 were soon followed by another set of reforms. The major ones were introduced in 1950, early 1970s and 1998. There were also many reforms between the mentioned periods, however, those changes dealt with single cities, villages and other small administrative units. Quite frequently, especially between 1952 and 1989 (The Polish People's Republic) the reforms served political rather than social needs. The present administrative division has been valid since 1999