According to directoryaah.com, Poland occupies the intermediate section of that great flat belt which extends seamlessly from the North Sea to the Urals. The Polish territory in a certain way constitutes the suture stretch between the Germanic lowlands and the Sarmatic ones and is configured as a succession of alluvial plains and slight undulations, raised only to the S, where the Sudetes (Bohemian massif) and the Beskids (Carpathians). The country is almost entirely identified with a single large plain (the word ‘Poland’ comes from the Slavic word polska, which means ‘plain’), shaped by Quaternary glaciers, which in their advance towards the S did not find substantial obstacles, so that the moraine cover on the ancient rocky base appears on the whole rather uniform, mostly moved by parallel bumps (drumlins) corresponding to the ancient frontal moraines. Compact in shape, closed between the Baltic Sea to the N, the Bohemian massif and the Carpathians to the S, the Polish territory has a remarkable morphological homogeneity, largely due to the Pleistocene roofs Pleistocene roofs on the southern reliefs. From north to south, however, three sections can be distinguished: a northern fringe close to the coast, an irregular complex of low-rise moraine hills; a vast central region, rich in alluvial plains furrowed by large valleys of glacial origin (pradoliny) typical of the German-Polish plain; finally a southern foothill area characterized by plateaus with a not very rough topography, but with mountainous elevations at the extreme S. The northern section of Poland represents the base of an ancient corrugated area and subsequently almost completely leveled by erosion; the Quaternary glaciers, during their last stage of stay to the S of the area that is occupied by the Baltic Sea, left there a disordered mass of moraines that morphologically give rise to a slightly rugged relief, with hills high on average from 200 to 300 m, mostly covered with dense woodland vegetation. Lakes and marshes fill every cavity, especially in correspondence of Masuria to the NE, and Pomerania to the NW. The coast, almost everywhere low, overlooks the Baltic Sea for 694 km, bordered by dunes and lagoons (zalew), separated from the sea by sometimes very long sandy cords, which have often forced massive works to preserve the port installations from silting up. Only the Oder estuary offers a good natural inlet to the port of Szczecin, while the wide gulf of Gdansk into which the Vistula flows into it does not allow for easy anchoring. Central Poland is largely occupied by the floodplains of the Vistula and the Oder and is characterized, as mentioned, by the proglacial channels often intersected by the furrows of the rivers, which generally develop from N to S, that is, following the slope of the soil. In correspondence with as many stops in the retreat phases of the Quaternary glaciers, various alignments of roughly parallel channels were formed; pradoliny, often occupied by lakes and peat bogs, and the surrounding moraine covers can reach nearly a hundred meters. In the great Polish plain, which essentially identifies itself with central Poland, two vast regional complexes can be distinguished, roughly divided by the Vistula: to E the depression of Masovia-Podlachia, to W that of Kuyavian-Greater Poland, drained by the Warta and from the Oder. Although with some differences (Podlachia and Masovia for example, they have a higher average altitude, about 200 m), these are vast plains weakly engraved by the hydrographic network, characterized by landscapes eminently transformed by man, in which crops follow one another as far as the eye can see. The area of ​​intense agricultural development is above all Greater Poland, especially the region around Poznań, in which the most depressed areas of the glacial channels have long been the subject of important drainage works.

On the other hand, the southern part of Poland is bumpy, although the actual mountains occupy a limited space and only exceptionally exceed 1000 meters. Between the mountain rim and the great plain of central Poland there is a vast area consisting of relatively high plateaus (612 m the Łysica mountain and 390 m in the Roztocze ridge, on the border with Ukraine), where ancient Hercynian soils prevail (Paleozoic) peneplanated by erosion and subsequently rejuvenated by the repercussions of the Cenozoicorogeny of the Carpathians. The region, in which various historical-geographical units can be distinguished (Galicia, Lesser Poland, Silesia etc.), is favored by the presence of fertile loxic soils, the postglacial aeolian clays that cover the bottom moraines, but even more from the mineral riches, particularly in Silesia, where one of the richest coalfields in Europe is located. The reliefs of the extreme southern belt belong to two distinct mountain ranges: the western Carpathians to the SE and the Bohemian massif to the SW. Of the former, with Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary soils superimposed on a crystalline nucleus, Poland has only the outer side of the Beskids: the maximum altitudes are maintained around 1500-2000 m and there are no glaciers, which even in the glacial period had little extension. However, the country accesses the High Tatras massif (Mount Rysy, 2499 m) through the upper basin of the Dunajec, a tributary of the Vistula: this is one of the few areas of the Carpathians that present a glacial morphology similar to that of the Alps, with jagged crests and sharp peaks (moreover the Tatras are almost entirely in Slovak territory). The northern slope of the Sudetenland belongs to Poland from the Bohemian massif, consisting mainly of schists, granites and gneisses strongly eroded at the top; the mountains slightly exceed 1000 m, reaching the highest peak in Snĕžka (1602 m), in the Giant Mountains massif, on the border with the Czech Republic. The orographic complex gives rise to one of the typical landscapes of the ancient mountains of Europe central-central (antiquity to which the mineral wealth of the area is linked), with vast expanses covered with woods that enclose basins and small internal valleys.