The proportion of the population residing in urban areas was 59.45%, a figure that has been declining as a consequence of suburbanization.

[5] In addition, Poland is home to a large number of foreigners, most of whom are not counted towards the official population of the country.

[6]Poland's population has been growing quickly after World War II, during which the country lost millions of citizens.

In the eastern parts of the country, Ukrainians and Belarusians often outnumbered Poles, while in the west there were large German communities.

However, in the last decade Poland witnessed a mass-scale migration to the country, mostly from the neighboring Ukraine and Belarus and increasingly from Central, South Asia and the Middle East.

For many centuries, until the end of World War II in 1945, the population of Poland included many significant ethnic minorities.

This growth has been fully fueled by positive natural change (more births than deaths), as net international migration was negative for Poland every year between 1966 and 1989, even despite the socialist government's restrictions on leaving the country for any reason.

578,405 people emigrated from Poland between 1966 and 1989,[15] with the main destination countries being Germany (388,137) and United States (50,453).

Since 1990, Poland's population stagnated at 38.0-38.6 million, with the median age rising due to low birth rates.

As of the 2021 census, 59.8% of total population lived in cities and town, a percentage well below European average.

Poland has historically been a rural and agricultural country and while cities started rapidly growing in neighboring countries in the second half of the 19th century, many Polish cities were artificially limited in growth by the partitioners due to military reasons.

After regaining independence in 1918, Polish authorities have started investment in urbanizing the country but it was quickly interrupted by World War II.

In the Eurostat's urban-rural typology, Poland's urbanization rate is slightly higher, however still below the European average.

[50] Główny Urząd Statystyczny (GUS), the Polish central statistics office, published multiple separate counts of foreign nationals living in Poland for the 2021 census.

Prior to 2022, the time limits were even stricter, with a 6-month maximum stay that had to be accompanied by a 6-month period outside of Poland until a new work visa could be obtained.

[64] The vast majority of migrants come from Ukraine, as well as Belarus, Moldova, and Georgia, since the law doesn't require the employer to look for potential Polish workers before hiring a foreigner from said countries.

Polish social insurance provider, Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych (ZUS), reported 1,094,148 foreigners paying towards pension insurance in Poland at the end of June 2023, an 8.1% increase since the year prior and more than double compared to 5 years ago.

[71] Poland was a diverse country before World War II, with only around 2/3 of the population being ethnically Polish.

Due to German and Soviet war-time resettlements and genocides, and after-war population transfers, post-war Poland was one of the most ethnically homogenous countries in Europe and stayed that way until the 21st century.