ABSTRACT
To understand the present day status of Eastern Poland within the national and European hierarchy of regions, it is important to see it in the context of a pattern that originates in the Middle Ages and seems to be a permanent structure of the Polish space until today. The east-west differentiation is characterized by gradually decreasing levels of economic development from West to East. In Eastern Poland, many towns had a "private" character, that is, they were not governed by burghers but owned by aristocratic land-owners. The same differentiation that refers to decreasing density from west to east, concerns also all kinds of infrastructure including roads, railways, sewage systems all the way up to foreign direct investments in recent years. Another important early transformation that deepened the East-West differentiation was the so called "second serfdom" in Eastern Poland, usually perceived as a result of the sixteenth century rise of Western demand for Poland's grains.
