Warsaw is located on the central Vistula, in the glacial valley of the Vistula, and on the middle masow valley at an average of 100 meters above sea level. The city spreads out on both sides of the Vistula and lies approximately in the middle between the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea – to each destination about 350 km.
The historic city centre is located on the left, west bank of the Vistula on the elongated Vistula cliff Skarpa Wiślana, which rises relatively steeply about 15 to 30 meters above the Vistula. One of the first bridges in Europe with a length of several hundred meters connected the two banks as early as the 16th century.