Rola Wisły jako rzeki gra nicznej na tle historycznych podziałów kraju i jej znaczenie w aktualnym podziale administracyjnym

Abstract

Celem pracy jest zbadanie znaczenia Wisły jak rzeki granicznej zarówno w kontekście historycznych podziałów kraju, jak i w obowiązującym podziale administracyjnym. Na podstawie map i literatury możliwe było określenie, na jakich odcinkach i w jakich okresach Wisła stanowiła granicę zapożyczoną z natury i gdzie rola Wisły jako rzeki granicznej cechuje się największą stabilnością.

This work concerns the importance of the Vistula as a border borrowed from nature in historical and current divisions of Poland. Forms of this division have changed over the centuries several times. The first form of spatial government was the so-called neighboring communities – opola. In the Middle Ages there were new forms of organization of space such as a province and castellany. In the following centuries these forms changed and evolved. There were counties, municipalities and provinces. The period of the partitions of Poland, as well as two world wars brought changes to the internal division of the country, imposed by the invader administration. Political boundaries were repeatedly changed too. In many of these divisions, the Vistula River served as a natural basis for the designation of a border. It should be noted, that there are places where the border is more than five hundred years old. The current administrative landscape of Poland is a result of government reforms in 1999, which established a three-tier division of the country. The role of the Vistula as a border in this division is also clearly visible.