Przestrzenny wzorzec osiedlania się cudzoziemców w Polsce

The article presents the spatial distribution of foreigners living in Poland. The data used come from the Office for Repatriations and Aliens and refer to all foreigners who were legally residing in Poland as on 1th September 2004 (84,7 thousand persons). The main countries of origin of immigrants are states of the former Soviet Union (mostly Ukraine, Russia and Belarus), next countries of the Western Europe (Germany, France, the United Kingdom) and finally countries of the East-Central Europe (Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro). Depending on a region of origin, foreigners form different spatial patterns of settlement and show different levels of concentration, evaluated by use of the Gini index and the Lorenz curve. Foreigners coming from the countries of the former Soviet Union settled in all regions of Poland and did not form spatial clusters. The degree of the spatial concentration is moderate for the citizens of East-European states and profoundly high for the immigrants from Far East states (above all the Vietnamese). The latter constitute ethnic enclaves in the biggest Polish cities