Wroclaw Wojewodztwo

an administrative unit in southwestern Poland. Area, 18,900 sq km. Population, 1,973,000 (1970; excluding its administrative center, the city of Wroclaw). The greater part of Wroclaw Wojewodztwo— the northern portion—is situated on an undulating plain with broad river valleys (the Odra River and its tributaries, the Widawa, Barycz, Kaczawa, and Bobr) and hilly water-sheds (the Trzebnickie Ridge, with elevations to 272 m). In the southern portion are the Sudetes Ranges: the Kaczawskie Mountains, Sowie Mountains, part of the Jizerske Mountains, Krkonosze (Mt. Sniezka on the Czechoslovak border has an elevation of 1,602 m) and the Bystrzyckie Mountains. The climate is moderate and the annual precipitation is 600-1,200 mm. There are coniferous and mixed forests.

Wroclaw Wojewodztwo is economically developed, producing 7.3 percent of the country’s gross industrial output (1969). There is bituminous coal mining (3.3 million tons in 1968) in the Walbrzych basin and lignite and brown coal mining (about 15 million tons) in the vicinity of Turoszow, where a large thermal power station (capacity 2 million kW) has been constructed. There is copper mining (Lubin and Polkowiec near Bolesawiec; smelting in Legnica) and mining of barite and magnesite. The region also has large rock quarries. Ferronickel is smelted in Szklary.

The main branches of industry are machine construction (radio and electrical equipment, automobile and railway cars, and textile machinery), textiles—the oldest industry—and the food industry. Also important are the chemical (artificial fibers, organic chemicals, sulfuric acid, phosphorus fertilizers, and other products), paper and pulp, porcelain and faience, ceramics, glass, and furniture industries.

Agricultural land constitutes over 60 percent of the area of the wojewodztwo. Arable land accounts for 46 percent of the agricultural land and forests, 27 percent (logging up to 1.6 million cu m in 1967). There is intensive farming, especially on the left bank of the Odra and in the Sudetes foothills, where the chief agricultural crops are wheat (one-fourth of the total crop) and sugar beets. On the rest of the land, oats, rye, sown grasses, and potatoes are cultivated. Cattle (718,000 head in 1967) and pigs (622,000) are the main live-stock,