Province of Upper Silesia
During the Nazi campaign of renaming of placenames, in 1936 while part of the Province of Upper Silesia, it was renamed "Bergstadt" ("mountain town") to remove traces of Polish origin. In 1945, it was placed under Polish administration according to the Potsdam Agreement and the historic name "Leśnica" was restored. Due to fact that no less than 20% of its population belongs to the German minority in Poland, the town uses bilingual Polish and German signs and language – Polish remains official, German is the language of "assistance".