Topic: My place of residence and its location in the administrative map of Poland

Written by: Magdalena Jankun

Target group

A student of a primary school, 7th grade

Core curriculum

IX. Poland’s natural environment in European perspective: Poland’s geographical location.

A student is able to:

4) provide names of Polish provinces (voivodeships) and their capitals, and to indicate them on a map.

Purpose of the lesson

Students discuss administrative division of Poland.

Conditions to be met to succeed

• to explain what the administrative division is;

• to determine which province you live in;

• to provide, and indicate on a map, all provinces and their capitals;

• to explain three tiers of the administrative division of Poland.

Key competences

• communication in native language;

• communication in non‑native language;

• mathematical competences;

• IT competences;

• ability to learn;

• social and civic competences.

Methods/forms of work

Work with text and multimedia.

Individual work and work in pairs.

Teaching accessories

• an abstract;

• an interactive or traditional writing board;

• a multimedia projector;

• tablets/computers;

• LearningApps application.

Stages of the lesson

Introduction

1. The teacher provides a topic and a purpose of the lesson as well as conditions to be met to succeed.

2. Students perform an interactive exercise, being a jigsaw puzzle representing a photograph of Warsaw. Then, they try to answer what city this is and which province it is located in.

Operation

1. The teacher asks students to get familiar with introductive fragments of the abstract and to explain what the administrative division is.

2. The teacher presents maps of Poland, showing administrative division in the following years: 1946, 1950 and 1975. Students indicate a province which contained a city or town being the closest to their places of residence. They describe historical changes in administrative division.

3. The teacher uses an interactive board to show an administrative map of Poland, presenting provinces and counties (powiaty) existing since the 1st of January, 1999. Students, working in pairs, discuss all provinces one by one, providing names of their capitals as well as major cities and geographical objects.

4. The teacher explains the following criteria of administrative division:

• geographical;

• historical;

• economic;

• social.

5. Students, using hypsometric maps, analyse location of their places of residence. They determine land characteristics (points with the highest and the lowest altitude), surface waters and geographical regions.

6. The teacher uses an interactive board to present a chart depicting three tiers of administrative division. Next, he/she analyses it with students.

Summary

1. Students perform particular interactive exercises, evaluating knowledge obtained during the lesson (locations of provinces, recognising their capitals and major cities).

2. The teacher evaluates efforts of students during the lesson, considering their commitment and individual abilities.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

My place of residence and its location on the administrative map of Poland

Almost every country in the world manages its own, internal administrative division. Its purpose is to make country‑level management easier. Currently, Poland is divided to 16 provinces (voivodeships). Each province is divided to counties (poviats), and each county is divided to communes/municipalities. This administrative division was introduced in 1999. But, previous administrative division was different.

After the Second World War, in June 1946, 14 provinces were established. Another level of administrative division included counties (poviats), and the lowest one included communes and cities. In 1950, the number of provinces was increased to 17 as some large provinces in the West Lands were divided.

In 1955, communes were abandoned, and subsequently replaced by gatherings. In 1973, this process was reversed – gathering were replaced by communes. In 1975, 49 provinces were established with simultaneous dissolution of counties (poviats).

Currently, a three level administrative division (territorial division) is used.
On the 1st of January 1999, 16 provinces (first level) were established. Each province was divided to counties (second level) which in turn were divided to communes/municipalities (third level).

The current administrative division has been presented on e‑books.

The names of provinces often originate from historical or geographical macroregions. Despite being proper names, in Polish these are written with no capital letter, e.g. “województwo mazowieckie” meaning the Masovian Province. The names of counties and communes usually originate from their capitals (major cities/towns), however, the name of any county is an adjective (e.g. “powiat oleśnicki” meaning the Oleśnica County), and the name of a commune/municipality is a noun (e.g. “gmina Dobroszyce” meaning the Dobroszyce Commune). Therefore, in Polish names of counties contain no capital letter, yet names of communes do.
In the nomenclature of counties one may found some exceptions, such as “powiat tatrzański” (Tatra County) with its capital in Zakopane or “powiat bieszczadzki” (Bieszczady County) with its capital in Ustrzyki Górne. There are also names originating from a pair of towns, such as “powiat strzelecko‑drezdenecki” (the Strzelece‑Drezdenko County) or “powiat ropczycko‑sędziszowski” (the Ropczyce‑Sędziszów County). There are also names of county capitals which make it quite hard to form a suitable name in adjective form — this is why there is “powiat suski” (the Sucha Beskidzka County) or “powiat niżański” (the Nisko County).

As you might remember from the primary school, Poland is divided into following geographical macroregions: the mountains (e.g. Sudetes), highlands (e.g. the Lublin Highlands), lowlands (e.g. the Silesian Lowlands), lakelands (e.g. the Masurian Lakeland) etc. During geography lessons, we will often determine location of a certain object in relation to these macroregions as well as in relation to other geographical objects, such as rivers, lakes or cities/towns. Describing geographical location of the object, we will also use primary and secondary directions as well as geographical coordinates.

Hypsometric maps of provinces have been presented on e‑books.

Observe the material. It presents three level administrative division.

• In Poland, a three level administrative division is used.

• Division of Poland into smaller territorial units allows for better administrative management of the country and more efficient operation of public services.