page_title: Town
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Town / By country / Poland
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Ratusz w Zamościu.
context_page_description: A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages but smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish them vary considerably between different parts of the world.
context_section_description: Similarly to Germany and Sweden, in Poland there is no linguistic distinction between a city and a town. The word for both is miasto, as a form of settlement distinct from following: village (wieś), hamlet (przysiółek), settlement (osada), or colony (kolonia). Town status is conferred by administrative decree, new towns are announced by the Government in a separate Bill effective from the first day of the year. Some settlements tend to remain villages even though they have a larger population than many smaller towns. Town may be called in diminutive way as "miasteczko", what is colloquially used for localities with a few thousand residents. Such localities have usually a Mayor (burmistrz) as a chief of town council.
  Cities are the biggest localities, generally must be bigger than 100 thousand of residents, they are ruled by President (prezydent) as a chief of City Council. There are bare a few (mainly historic or political) exemptions which have allowed towns lesser than 100 thousand of people, to obtain President title for their Mayors, and to become recognized as Cities that way. Just to name a few: Bolesławiec, Gniezno, Zamość.
caption: Zamość in Poland is an example of a utopian ideal town. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992
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