page_title: Chojnów
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Chojnów / History
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Restauracja Hopfenberg - Gaststätte, znajdująca się na szczycie Wzgórza Chmielowego, w chojnowskim Parku Piastowskim. Pocztówka z początku XX wieku.
context_page_description: Chojnów is a small town in Legnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is located on the Skora river, a tributary of the Kaczawa at an average altitude of 170 m above sea level. Chojnów is the administrative seat of the rural gmina called Gmina Chojnów, although the town is not part of its territory and forms a separate urban gmina. As of 2019 it had 13,355 inhabitants.
  Chojnów is located 18 km west of Legnica, 26 km east from Bolesławiec and 18 km north of Złotoryja, 5 km from the A4 motorway. It has railroad connections to Bolesławiec and Legnica.
context_section_description: The town is first mentioned in a Latin mediaeval document issued in Wrocław on February 26, 1253, stating, the Silesian Duke Henry III when the town is mentioned under the name Honowo. Possible the name of nearby Hainau Island. The name is of Polish origin, and in more modern records from the 19th century, the Polish name appears as Hajnów, while Haynau is the Germanized version of the original Polish name.
  The settlement of Haynow was mentioned in a 1272 deed. It was already called a civitas in a 1288 document issued by the Piast duke Henry V of Legnica, and officially received town privileges in 1333 from Duke Bolesław III the Generous. It was part of the duchies of Wrocław, Głogów and Legnica of fragmented Poland and remained under the rule of the Piast dynasty until 1675. Its population was predominantly Polish. In 1292 the first castellan of Chojnów, Bronisław Budziwojowic, was mentioned. In the 14th and early 15th centuries Chojnów was granted various privileges, including staple right and gold mining right, thanks to which it flourished.
  The town survived the Hussites, who burned almost the entire town center and castle, but it quickly helped recover its former glory. The largest boom Chojnów experienced was in the 16th century, however by the end of that century began to decline due to fires and epidemic, which claimed many victims in 1613. During the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), there was another outbreak in the city, it was occupied by the Austrians and Swedes and in 1642 it was also plundered by the Swedes. It remained part of the Piast-ruled Duchy of Legnica until its dissolution in 1675, when it was incorporated to Habsburg-ruled Bohemia.
  In the 18th century, cloth production developed and a clothmaking school was established in the town. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland traveled that route numerous times. In 1740 the town was captured by Prussia and subsequently annexed in 1742. In 1804 it suffered a flood. During the Napoleonic wars there were more epidemics. In 1813 in Chojnów, Napoleon Bonaparte issued instructions regarding the reorganization of the 8th Polish Corps of Prince Józef Poniatowski. The event is commemorated by a plaque in the facade of the Piast Castle. A railway line was opened in the 19th century. Sewer, Gas lighting a Newspaper and a hospital soon followed as the towns economy improved.
  The city was not spared in World War II, with 30% of the town being destroyed on February 10, 1945 when Soviet Red Army troops took the abandoned town. After World War II and the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line in 1945, the town passed to the Republic of Poland. It was repopulated by Poles, expelled from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. In 1946 it was renamed Chojnów, a more modern version of the old Polish Hajnów. Also Greeks, refugees of the Greek Civil War, settled in Chojnów.
caption: Early 20th-century view of the Piast Park
exif: {"Image Tag 0x0301": "20000/9091", "Image Tag 0x0303": "0", "Image Tag 0x5110": "1", "Image Tag 0x5111": "3779", "Image Tag 0x5112": "3779"}