The Rybnik Coal Area (, ROW) is an industrial region in southern Poland. "Rybnicki Okręg Węglowy" - PWN Encyclopedia It is located in the Silesian Voivodeship, in a basin between the Vistula and Oder rivers, sited on the Rybnik Plateau () between Katowice (Upper-Silesian Metropolis) to the north and Ostrava on the south-west. It is part of the Silesian metropolitan area populated by 5,294,000 peopleEuropean Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON) and the Silesian metropolitan region populated by about 7 million. According to scientific description by Paweł Swianiewicz and Urszula Klimska this area has 507,000 people,"Społeczne i polityczne zróżnicowanie aglomeracji w Polsce" - Paweł Swianiewicz, Urszula Klimska; University of Warsaw 2005 according to European Spatial Planning Observation Network - 634,000 people (525,000 + 109,000 by Racibórz). Area: about 1,300 km².
