page_title: Gorzów Wielkopolski
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gorzów Wielkopolski / History
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Widok na bulwary w Gorzowie Wielkopolskim z tarasu widokowego
context_page_description: Gorzów Wielkopolski, often abbreviated to Gorzów Wlkp. or simply Gorzów, is a city in western Poland, on the Warta river. It is the second largest city in the Lubusz Voivodeship with 115,309 inhabitants and one of its two capitals with a seat of a Voivodeship governor. Previously it was the capital of the Gorzów Voivodeship.
  Gorzów is known for its successful sportsmen, including Olympic and world champions and national representatives. The city is also known as the hometown of former Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.
  Around Gorzów, there are two large forest areas: Gorzów Woods to the north, where the Barlinek-Gorzów Landscape Park is situated, and Noteć Woods to the southeast. The biggest oil fields in Poland are located near Gorzów.
context_section_description: During the reign of the first Polish monarchs of the Piast dynasty there was a craft and trade settlement and until the mid-13th century, the land where the river Kłodawka meets the Warta was the location of a defensive fort established by the Polish Piast dynasty. In 1249 the Silesian Duke Bolesław II Rogatka had sold Lubusz Land in the west to the Ascanian Margraves of Brandenburg, and the city of Landisberch Nova (named after Altlandsberg) was founded on the site in 1257. The city was at that time an eastern outpost of the newly established Neumark region of Brandenburg, close to the Greater Polish fortress of Santok. After a war broke out over control of the region in 1319, the town came under control of the Duchy of Pomerania, but by 1325 it fell to Brandenburg again. In 1325 Polish, in 1432 Hussite troops beleaguered the city. In 1373 the city became part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (or Czech Lands), ruled by the Luxembourg dynasty. In 1402, the Luxembourgs reached an agreement with Poland in Kraków. Poland was to buy Gorzów and the surrounding region, but eventually the Luxembourgs sold the city to the Teutonic Order. In 1454, after the Thirteen Years’ War broke out, the Teutonic Knights sold the city to Brandenburg in order to raise funds for war against Poland. In the 16th century the city became Lutheran, with St. Mary's Cathedral changing its allegiance in 1537.
  In 1701 Landsberg (Gorzów) – like all of Brandenburg – became ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Prussia. On 4 February 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Ataman Aleksandr Chernichev and his Cossack troops defeated a French battalion of 1,500 men of Louis-Nicolas Davout's corps. In 1815 – in the course of an administrative restructuring – the town became part of Prussia's Province of Brandenburg. The city, like all of Prussia, was included in the German Empire in 1871 during the unification of Germany.
  During World War II, the Germans established nine forced labour camps, as well as four labour units for French, Italian and Soviet prisoners of war in the city.
  In early 1945 during World War II the town was heavily damaged following the retreat of the Wehrmacht ahead of the Soviet Red Army. The Red Army arrived in the city on 30 January 1945, approaching from the left bank of the river Warta. The Wehrmacht had already evacuated most of the city, and the advancing forces met very little resistance. Over the course of the next few days, most of the city centre was destroyed, reportedly through the accidental spread of a fire started in order to light the westward march of the Red Army.
  The city became part of Poland in accordance with the provisions of the post-war Potsdam Conference, pending a final peace conference with Germany. Since a peace conference never took place, the town was effectively ceded by Germany. Most of the remaining German population was expelled. The last original inhabitants were forced to leave the city in the early 1950s. Between February and September 1945, the original population of the city was gradually replaced by Poles from central parts of Poland and those expelled from Polish territory annexed by the Soviet Union (also known as Kresy). It was at this time that Gorzów's significant Tatar and Romani communities arrived. Not having had an agreed Polish name, the town was initially renamed as "Kobylagóra" on 30 May 1945, later as "Gorzów nad Wartą" on 7 July 1945 and finally "Gorzów Wielkopolski" on 5 November 1946.
caption: View of the riverside boulevards and the city's oldest section
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