Lesser Poland Voivodeship — six national parks and the densest cluster of UNESCO sites in Poland.

Lesser Poland covers roughly 15,108 km², which puts it among the smaller Polish provinces — yet no other region is so varied from top to bottom. Limestone crags of the Kraków-Częstochowa upland rise in the north, the wide Sandomierz basin with the Vistula valley fills the middle, and the south belongs to the Beskids, the Pieniny and the Tatras, the only range in Poland with a genuinely alpine character. Rysy (2,499 m) is the highest point in the country, more than two kilometres above the river valley below.

The regional capital is Kraków, for centuries the seat of Polish kings. Its Main Market Square, laid out in the thirteenth century as a square with sides a little over two hundred metres long, is considered the largest medieval market square in Europe; the Cloth Hall stands in the middle, and the Royal Route leads from here up to Wawel Hill. The historic centre was on the very first UNESCO World Heritage List in 1978, together with the Wieliczka salt mine, now inscribed jointly with the mine at Bochnia.

No other Polish region holds so many World Heritage sites. They include the Mannerist pilgrimage complex at Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, added in 1999 and still the only calvary on the list, and the group of wooden churches of southern Lesser Poland, built of horizontally laid logs under shingle roofs, at Dębno Podhalańskie, Lipnica Murowana, Binarowa and Sękowa among others. The list also covers the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau at Oświęcim, today a memorial and museum.

The region's wild side rests on six national parks that lie here wholly or in part: Tatra (established in 1955), Pieniny, Gorce, Babia Góra, Ojców and Magura. Ojców National Park is the smallest in Poland at just over 21 km², but it packs in ravines, caves, the rock pillar known as Hercules' Club and the Renaissance castle of Pieskowa Skała. In the Pieniny the main draw remains the Dunajec gorge, seen either from a traditional raft or from the ridge path up the Three Crowns.

The southern belt is also spa country: Krynica-Zdrój, Muszyna, Szczawnica, Rabka-Zdrój and Piwniczna all draw on the mineral springs of the Sącz Beskids. In winter the region turns to skiing, at Zakopane, Białka Tatrzańska, Bukowina Tatrzańska and Czarna Góra. With an international airport at Kraków-Balice and the A4 motorway running across it, this is the most accessible mountain region in Poland — something you notice on the trails in both summer and winter.