Poland is located in the heart of Central Europe. The designation of it as Eastern European was politically expedient during the Cold War. Since the Wall fell the overly-simplified East and West European maps have been abandoned. Just check around on the web and you'll find that Scandanavia is referred to as northern Europe, just about everything in the Balkans is referred to as Southern or South-eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic have come to be designated as Central Europe, and the term East Europe, sometimes called the new East Europe, has been reserved for countries like Belarus and Ukraine that are still struggling with inumerable political, social, environmental, and economic issues.
Because of these new designations, and because Poland and its neighboring Visegrad countries have made so many political and economic strids, and are in the EU as well as Nato, eferring to Poland as being in East Europe can be perceived as ignorant, if not prejorative.
On a final note, the main budget airline flying people from Poland to other destinations in Europe is called Central Wings
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