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A country in Central Europe, with a coastline on the Baltic Sea in the north, Poland is bounded to the west by Germany, to the south by the Czech and Slovak Republics, to the east by Ukraine and Belarus, and by Lithuania and the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad to the north. For the most part undulating, Poland is part of the great Northern European Plain, though it rises toward the south through hills that culminate in the Sudeten and Carpathian mountains that form the southern frontier. It has thousands of lakes, mostly in the northeast of the country. Before World War II, Poland was predominantly an agricultural economy, but industry was greatly expanded under Communism. Since its return to democracy, Poland's economy has greatly improved and is now reaping the benefits of European Union subsidies.