THE RISE OF THE COMMON PEOPLE 133Posen from 30 km^2 in 1820 to 72 km^2 in 1910; in Galicia from 50 km^2 to 104 km^2 ;
in the Congress Kingdom, from 27 km^2 to 93 km^2. In this same period, taking
the three central Partitions together, it rose from 35.4 km^2 to 94.8 km^2. Before
the First World War the Polish lands stood in a similar position to that of the
German Empire (104.2 km^2 ), holding a mid-way position between the two
extremes of 132 km^2 in the British Isles and 21 km^2 in European Russia. By 1939
in the Second Republic, density fell to 90 km^2 in consequence of the sparsely
inhabited eastern provinces. By 1971, in the People's Republic on a more west-
erly base, it has risen to 105 km^2 , slightly higher than that of France (94 km^2 ) but
well below that of Italy (180 km^2 ), Great Britain (228 km^2 ), or West Germany
(239 km^2 ).
As a predominantly Catholic country, Poland has sometimes enjoyed a repu-
tation for exceptional feats of reproduction. In effect, the reputation is not
entirely borne out by available statistics, and one can well imagine the motives
of the Protestant Prussian sources which originally propagated the myth. Rates
in the natural increase have fluctuated wildly. At the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury, a high birth-rate of 43.5/00 was offset by an unusually high death rate of
26/00. Average life expectancy did not exceed 40 years. Taking the century as a
whole, the estimated rate of increase of the Polish lands at 0.75, was less than
that of Germany (0.85), Great Britain (0.93), or Russia (1.06). The increase of
the Catholic Poles was slower than that of the Jews or of the Ukrainians. In the
twentieth century, exceptional population explosions in compensation for war
losses have not been sustained. The natural increase - 14.3/00 in 1921—38,19/00
in 1946—56 - has doubled the European average on two occasions. After the
Second World War, the birth-rate soared well beyond 30/00 and briefly
approached levels current fifty years before; but in the 1960s it was falling
rapidly. Like most European countries, the People's Republic was destined to
experience the familiar pattern of 'bulge' and 'trough'.
Throughout the modern period and right until the Second World War, the
Polish population was overwhelmingly rural in character. The urban popula-
tion, estimated at a maximum of 10 per cent at the Third Partition, had reached
only 18 per cent by 1900, 27.4 per cent by the census of 1931, and 31.8 per cent
by the first post-war census in 1946. In this respect, Poland trailed not only the
countries of Western Europe but also neighbouring countries such as
Czechoslovakia (65 per cent in 1931) or even the USSR (33 per cent in 1939).
Ethnic statistics are particularly suspect. Where kinship, religion, and lan-
guage are inextricably confused, no reliable definition of ethnicity exists. In
areas of mixed settlement, especially on the western and eastern peripheries,
intermarriage was widespread; bilingual and bireligious families were not
uncommon. People subjected to official questionnaires notoriously gave differ-
ent answers to different investigators. Even so, it can be safely asserted that the
Polish element has steadily expanded its place in the population at large ever
since the seventeenth century. From an estimated 40 per cent in 1650, the Poles
moved on to over 50 per cent by 1791, to 65 per cent by language in 1900 and