Struktura narodowościowa województwa zachodniopomorskiego
The ethnic structure of the West Pomeranian Voivodship

Summary/Abstract: According to the results of the latest census the West Pomeranian Voivodship is ethnically homogeneous; within its territory there are various communities with ethnic identities that differ from the Polish one, yet their total proportion does not exceed the level of a few percent. The most numerous non-Polish communities are the Ukrainian and German ethnic minorities, and the Gypsy (Romani people’s) ethnic community. According to the analysed statistics the number of the people born in a given country does not affect the size of the population of the minorities or immigrants. The number of the inhabitants of the West Pomeranian Voivodship born outside Poland is several times higher that the number of the people of the same ethnic identity. For example, in 2011 in the West Pomeranian Voivodship there were over 16,600 people born in the Ukraine, but about 5,000 declared to be of Ukrainian nationality and only 129 were Ukrainian citizens. There were over 1,300 people born in France, 298 declared to be of the French nationality and 153 were citizens of France. The conclusion is that the people declaring to be of the Polish nationality are the dominant part of the population born outside Poland. A very small proportion of the inhabitants of the West Pomeranian Voivodship use a language other than Polish in their private contacts. The biggest part of them are English-speaking people (4,500), followed by the German-speaking population (3,300) and the Ukrainian-speaking one (2,500). With the exception of Ukrainian, which is considered as a native language by more people (2,700) than the ones who speak it at home, the other languages were less frequently mentioned as a native tongue than as the language used at home. But only the results of the next census will give a basis to carry out reliable comparative analyses concerning the ethnic structure of Poland and the West Pomeranian Voivodship (assuming that the questions will be identical with the ones of the 2011 questionnaire).

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