The Polish people, or Poles) are a nation and a West Slavic ethnic group native to Poland.The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland.

Poland's inhabitants live in the following historic regions of the country: Wielkopolska, Małopolska, Mazovia (Polish: Mazowsze), Silesia (Polish: Śląsk), Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze), Kujawy, Warmia, Mazury, and Podlasie.

A wide-ranging Polish diaspora exists throughout Europe (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine), the Americas (the United States, Brazil and Argentina) and Australia.

Chicago, in the United States, has the world's largest urban Polish population after Warsaw.Over a thousand years ago, the Polans of Giecz, Gniezno and Poznań — an influential tribe in Wielkopolska — succeed in uniting Lechitic tribes under what becomes the Piast dynasty, thus giving rise to the Polish state.