Upper Silesian Coal Basin

The Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB; Polish: Górnośląskie Zagłębie Węglowe, GZW, Czech: Hornoslezská uhelná pánev) is a coal basin in Silesia, in Poland and the Czech Republic.

[1] The Basin also contains a number of other minable resources, such as methane, cadmium, lead, silver and zinc.

Coal depth is approximately 1,000 meters, and contains about 70 billion tons, with good extraction potential.

It is located mainly in the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland as well as extending into the Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic.

The Upper Silesian Coal Basin includes the Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area and has a population of 5,294,000 (with 4,311,000 in Poland and 983,000 in the Czech Republic).

Economic activity in Poland in 1990. The Upper Silesian Coal Basin is visible in brown, in the southern part of the country.
Map of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin published in 1910.