6,078 articles
Polish population transfers (1944–1946)
The Polish population transfers of 1944–1946 were reciprocal forced migrations moving Poles from the Soviet-annexed eastern territories into postwar Poland while Ukrainians and Belarusians were moved out.
Polish Scouting and Guiding Association
The Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (Polish: Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego, ZHP) is Poland's largest scouting and guiding organization, a co-educational youth movement founded in 1918.
Political correctness
Political correctness (PC): avoiding language or behavior that may offend particular groups; term usually used disapprovingly. Traced to 1793 and Maoist China's 1930s party line, pejorative since the 1980s US campus culture wars.
Political movement
Political movement: sustained collective action outside formal government institutions, spanning social movements, interest groups, and hybrid movement parties; explained by resource mobilization, political process, and framing theories.
Pollera women
Pollera women are Panamanian wearers and makers of the pollera, the national female dress whose name comes from 17th-century Spanish dress, with variants like the gala santeña; distinct from Bolivia's cholita pollera skirt.
Pollution in China
Pollution in China, also called Chinese pollution, is severe air and water contamination from coal-dominated industrialization, addressed through control programs begun after the 2013 smog winter.
Pollyanna principle
Pollyanna principle, also called Pollyanna hypothesis or linguistic positivity bias: the tendency to prefer and use positive words and information over negative ones, framed by Boucher and Osgood in 1969 and named for Porter's 1913 novel heroine.
Polyamory
Polyamory is consensual non-monogamy involving multiple loving relationships with everyone's knowledge and consent, distinct from swinging and polygamy; coined in 1992, practiced by roughly 1 in 9 US singles, with satisfaction comparable to monogamy.
Polyandry
Polyandry: one woman or female with multiple husbands or mates. Two forms, fraternal (Tibetan brothers sharing a wife) and non-fraternal (Nair). Rare worldwide, 53 surveyed non-classical societies, declining and legally unrecognized in India.
Polyandry in India
Polyandry in India is the practice of one woman married to more than one man at once, recorded from ancient times, chiefly in fraternal form in the Himalayas.
Polyfidelity
Polyfidelity is a closed form of polyamory in which three or more equal partners are romantically and sexually exclusive to the group; coined by the 1971-1991 Kerista commune of San Francisco, which also coined compersion.
Polygamy
Polygamy, or plural marriage, includes polygyny, polyandry, and polygynandry. A 2021 meta-analysis links it to higher depression in women and worse child psychological outcomes; legal in 93 states, mostly capped at four wives.
Polygamy in Africa
Polygamy in Africa is almost entirely polygyny, one man with multiple wives, recognized under customary, Islamic, or civil law in countries such as Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria; prevalence ranges widely (11–53% of married women) and has declined from 41% to 29% in Nigeria since 1990.
Polygamy in Christianity
Polygamy in Christianity: biblical evidence (Old Testament practice, no explicit New Testament lay ban), mainstream monogamous teaching, the Vatican's 2025 Una caro note, the 2026 SECAM African report, and churches accepting polygamy.
Polygamy in North America
Polygamy in North America is illegal in the United States and Canada but continues, mostly among Mormon fundamentalist groups, with an estimated 30,000 to 210,000 people living in plural families.
Polygyny
Polygyny is marriage of one man to two or more wives concurrently, the common form of polygamy, contrasted with rare polyandry and monogamy; concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, about 2% of the global population lives in polygamous households.
Polygyny in Islam
Polygyny in Islam (taʿaddud al-zawjāt): a Muslim man may marry up to four wives under Quran 4:3, conditional on justice and financial support; modern states regulate it variously, from Tunisia's prohibition to court-permission systems.
Polymath
Polymath: a person with deep expertise and contributions across several distinct fields, from Greek polys (many) and mathema (learning). Covers the term's 1603 Latin origin, Islamic and Renaissance traditions, breadth–depth–integration research, and interdisciplinary performance evidence.
Polynesians
Polynesians are the indigenous peoples of Polynesia, including Hawaiians, Samoans, Tongans, Tahitians, Marquesans, and Māori, speaking Austronesian languages. They settled the Pacific from Lapita-era West Polynesia, reaching New Zealand in a 14th-century mass migration, and are famed for non-instrument wayfinding.
Pomaks (Помаци)
Pomaks (Помаци): Slavic-speaking Muslim community of the Rhodope Mountains, living in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Albania, and North Macedonia, speaking Bulgarian dialects; gradually Islamized under Ottoman rule, contested origin narratives, endangered Pomak language with no standard.
Pontic Greeks
Pontic Greeks (Πόντιοι, Pontioi) are Greeks from the Black Sea coast of Anatolia (Pontus), with roots from the Kingdom of Pontus and Empire of Trabzon to the 1923 expulsion, a distinct dialect and culture, and a Soviet diaspora whose members re-embraced Pontic identity after migrating to Greece.
Poorhouse
Poorhouse (workhouse, almshouse) is a tax-funded public institution housing the destitute old, sick, and disabled. Distinguished by indoor relief, English parish workhouses under the 1601-1834 Old Poor Law, the 1834 union workhouses, and American county poorhouses.
Population ageing
Population ageing: rising share of older people in an age structure after the demographic dividend, driven mainly by falling fertility and longer lives; measured by 65+ share and old-age dependency ratios, with UN WPP 2024 projections.
Population decline
Population decline: sustained fall in a country's or region's inhabitants. 63 countries including China, Japan, and Germany have peaked; UN projects global peak of 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s, then decline.
Population density
Population density is the number of people per unit of area, also measured as agricultural or physiological density. Key figures include a Vancouver health threshold near 9,400 per km² and density elasticities of wages and rents.
Population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine
The population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine was a state-organized transfer agreed on 9 September 1944, moving Ukrainians from Poland and Poles from Ukraine.
Population of Canada
Population of Canada: 41,798,407 estimated by Statistics Canada on July 1, 2026; grew 189,425 (+0.5%) year over year, the slowest since 1944/1945, driven almost entirely by international migration.
Population of Canada by province and territory
Canada's ten provinces and three territories held an estimated 41,798,407 people on July 1, 2026, up 0.46%, the slowest growth since 1946. Ontario holds 38.9% of the total.
Population projection
Population projection is a demographic method that estimates the future size and age-sex composition of a population by applying assumptions about fertility, mortality, and migration.
Population pyramid
Population pyramid: a paired bar chart of a population by age and sex, males left, females right. Also called age-sex pyramid. Types: expansive, stationary, constrictive; shapes record famines, wars, and baby booms.