the territories will be "Oder-Neisse provinces," a geographic concept
that is void of politics.

The Oder-Neisse provinces form part of the European lowlands
stretching from the Ural Mountains to the North Sea. The territories
are located between the Bohemian Forest and the Stettin Lagoon, a
sheltered incision of the Baltic Sea. In the west, they border on the
Oder and Neisse rivers, and in the east and the south, they are sur-
rounded by the Polish voivodships of Warszawa, Pomorze, Poznań,
and Katowice. The provinces occupy the southern and northern limits
of the lowlands and a narrow waist of land connecting the two salients
in the area of Liegnitz and Schneidemühl. In the south, the Giant
(Riesen Gebirge) and Sudeten Mountains close the entrance to Bo-
hemia and Moravia. The hill country has many scenic valleys and
resort places, rich pastures, and mines, the latter providing the greatest
wealth of the two Silesias in the form of coal and metallic deposits.
The hills extend from the mountains to eastern Lower Silesia, to
Grünberg, and to some parts of Pomerania, while the central and
northern salients are lowlands crossed by a number of rivers (includ-
ing the Oder, the Netze, and the Warthe) and, to a lesser degree,
marshes. In Pomerania and East Prussia, there are many small and
middle-sized lakes.

The climate of the Oder-Neisse provinces is cool. While winter is
relatively mild in Upper Silesia and in the valleys, both Pomerania
and East Prussia have severe Continental winters, with many blizzards.
Precipitation amounts to approximately twenty-two to twenty-four
inches a year, mostly in the form of spring rain and winter snows. ²

The Oder river dominates the economic life of the southern and
western provinces. It is navigable for 474 of its 538 miles, but its water
level fluctuates greatly. As a result, 23 dams, with a composite volume
of 404.3 million cubic meters, have been built by Prussia to regulate
the stream. The Oder is ice free most of the year and provides the least
expensive transportation route for exported Silesian coal and im-
ported Swedish iron ore. ³ The other major stream of the region, the
Vistula (Weichsel, Visla), is economically less significant because
most of its length is located in prewar Poland; its delta forms part of
the Free City of Danzig and the former German province of East Prus-
sia. Among the other rivers, the Netze and Warthe are important be-
cause of their utilization for irrigation purposes, while in East Prussia,
the Pregel provides an outlet to the Baltic Sea (the harbor at Königs-
berg-Pillau) for that province.

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