Polish historical regions

Their exact borders cannot be drawn, as the regions are not official political or administrative units.

To some extent, the regions correspond to the zones of Polish language dialects.

The following historic regions within Poland's modern borders belonged to the Polish state during most of its existence, inhabited by a majority or a sizeable Polish- or Cashubian-speaking population, thus forming the core Polish territory: Another group of territories constituted (either directly or as a fief) a part of the Polish state for varying amounts of time, ranging from episodes in the Middle Ages (e.g. Kłodzko Land, Lusatia) to several hundreds of years in the case of most, like Silesia, Warmia and Powiśle.

Among them, only Warmia, Powiśle, southern Masuria, as well as Upper, Cieszyn and eastern and northern Lower Silesia retained sizeable Polish-speaking populations into the beginning of 20th century.

While these regions are important for Polish history, calling them Polish is in some cases controversial, as most of them, with the exceptions of Vilnius Region (Polish: Wileńszczyzna) in Dzūkija, or Black Ruthenia, were either never or centuries ago predominantly populated by ethnic Poles and now lie beyond the borders of Poland.