Warsaw - national capital of Poland

Warsaw is notable among Europe’s capital cities not for its size, its age, or its beauty but for its indestructibility. It is a phoenix that has risen repeatedly from the ashes of war. Having suffered fearful damage during the Swedish and Prussian occupation of 1655–56, it was again assaulted in 1794, when the Russian army massacred the population of the right-bank suburb of Praga. In 1944, after the Warsaw Uprising failed, by Adolf Hitler’s order the city was razed; the left-bank suburbs, controlled by the Germans, were emptied of their remaining population; and the buildings were systematically reduced to rubble by fire and dynamite. In 1945, however, the people of Warsaw, the Varsovians, returned, and the city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country’s centre of social, political, economic, scientific, and cultural life. Many of the historical streets, buildings, and churches have been restored exactly according to their original forms.

Warsaw lies on the Vistula (Wisła) River, about 240 miles (386 km) southeast of the Baltic coast city of Gdańsk. It is situated in the middle of the Warsaw Plain, a glacier-formed basin that ranges from 250 to 380 feet (76 to 116 metres) above sea level. Divided into right- and left-bank portions by the river, the city extends about 18 miles from north to south and 16 miles from east to west. The river is some 3,900 feet (1,190 metres) wide at this point, although the riverbed has been artificially narrowed by embankment to a third of this width.