Gdansk Województwo

an administrative unit in northern Poland, partly in the regained territory, within the borders of the Baltic lakeland belt and the lower Vistula. Area, 11,000 sq km. Population, 1,461,000 (1969), of which 69 percent is urban. Administrative center, city of Gdańsk.

Gdańsk Województwo is washed on the north by the Baltic Sea and its inlets—the Gulf of Gdańsk and the Puck and Vistula bays. The shores are low, with several spits (the Hel and part of the Baltic). The surface is a hilly moraine plain, with altitudes up to 329 m (the Wieżyca mountain). In the Vistula Delta (Żulawy) there are points below sea level. The climate is temperate and ranges from maritime to continental. The average January temperature is about -2° C and the average July temperature, 18° C. The precipitation is about 600 mm a year. The province has many lakes, as well as mixed coniferous and deciduous forests.

About half the population is concentrated in the conurbation Gdańsk-Sopot-Gdynia, the so-called Trójmiasto or Tricity. This conurbation is Poland’s chief port and industrial complex and accounts for more than half of the freight turnover of Polish ports and four-fifths of the country’s shipbuilding. The main branches of industry (employing more than 170,000 workers in 1969, including two-thirds in Gdańsk and Gdynia) are machine building (more than 80,000 employees), particularly shipbuilding and the manufacture of ship equipment and steam turbines (in Elbląg), as well as electrical engineering, food processing (meat and fish packing and sugar refining), woodworking, and chemicals (superphosphates and fats). The total area under cultivation is 642,000 ha, of which more than one-fourth belong to state farms. Most of the land is used for growing rye, potatoes, oats, and sown grasses; in the Zulawy region and higher up along the Vistula wheat, sugar beets, and barley are grown. There is intensive livestock raising and dairy farming. In 1969 there were 360,000 head of cattle, including 174,000 cows, 430,000 pigs, 125,000 sheep, and 69,000 horses. The logging output was 700,000 cu m (1968), and the seafish catch, more than 200,000 tons. The resort of Sopot and other coastal settlements are popular places for summer recreation. There is navigation on the Vistula.