page_title: Wrocław
section_title: After the war
hierarchical_section_title: Wrocław / History / After the war
caption_attribution_description: English: WrocLover (WrocLovek) dwarf in front of tenement house Małgosia (Gretel) on Odrzańska 39-40. Polski: WrocLovek wrocławski krasnal znajdujący się przed kamieniczką Małgosia przy Odrzańskiej 39-40.
context_page_description: Wrocław is a city in western Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly 350 kilometres from the Baltic Sea to the north and 40 kilometres from the Sudeten Mountains to the south. The official population of Wrocław in 2019 was 642,869, with a further 1.25 million residing in the metropolitan area.
  Wrocław is the historical capital of Silesia and Lower Silesia. Today, it is the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. The history of the city dates back over a thousand years; at various times, it has been part of the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany. Wrocław became part of Poland again in 1945 as part of the so-called Recovered Territories as a result of the border changes after the Second World War. This included the flight and expulsion of the pre-war population of the city.
  Wrocław is a university city with a student population of over 130,000, making it arguably one of the most youth-oriented cities in the country.
context_section_description: In August 1945, the city had a German population of 189,500, and a Polish population of 17,000. After World War II the region once again became part of Poland under territorial changes demanded by the Soviet Union in the Potsdam Agreement. 
  The town's inhabitants who had not fled, or who had safely returned to their home town after the war officially had ended, were expelled between 1945 and 1949 in accordance to the Potsdam Agreement and were settled in the Soviet occupation zone and Allied Occupation Zones in the remainder of Germany. The city's last pre-war German school was closed in 1963.
  The Polish population was dramatically increased by the resettlement of Poles during postwar population transfers during the forced deportations from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union in the east region, some of whom came from Lviv (Lwów), Volhynia and Vilnius Region. A small German minority (about 1,000 people, or 2% of the population) remains in the city, so that today the relation of Polish to German population is the reverse of the relation 100 years ago. Traces of the German past such as inscriptions and signs were removed.
  Wrocław is now a unique European city of mixed heritage, with architecture influenced by Bohemian, Austrian and Prussian traditions, such as Silesian Gothic and its Baroque style of court builders of Habsburg Austria (Fischer von Erlach). Wrocław has a number of notable buildings by German modernist architects including the famous Centennial Hall (Hala Stulecia or Jahrhunderthalle; 1911–1913) designed by Max Berg. In 1948, Wrocław organised the Recovered Territories Exhibition and the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace. Picasso's lithograph, La Colombe (The Dove), a traditional, realistic picture of a pigeon, without an olive branch, was created on a napkin at the Monopol Hotel in Wrocław during the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace.
  In 1963, Wrocław was declared a closed city because of a smallpox epidemic.
  In 1982, during martial law in Poland, the anti-communist underground organizations, Fighting Solidarity and Orange Alternative were founded in Wrocław. Wrocław's dwarves made of bronze famously grew out of and commemorate Orange Alternative.
  In 1983 and 1997, Pope John Paul II visited the city.
  PTV Echo, the first non-state television station in Poland and in the post-communist countries, began to broadcast in Wrocław on 6 February 1990.
  In May 1997, Wrocław hosted the 46th International Eucharistic Congress.
  In July 1997, the city was heavily affected by a flood of the River Oder, the worst flooding in post-war Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. About one-third of the area of the city was flooded. An earlier equally devastating flood of the river took place in 1903.
  A small part of the city was also flooded during the flood in 2010. From 2012 to 2015, the Wrocław water node was renovated and redeveloped to prevent further flooding. It cost more than 900 million PLN (c. 220 million euro).
  Three matches in Group A of the UEFA Euro 2012 championship were played in the then newly constructed Municipal Stadium in Wrocław.
  In 2016, Wrocław was European Capital of Culture.
  In 2017, Wrocław hosted the 2017 World Games.
  Wrocław won the European Best Destination title in 2018.
caption: Wrocław dwarf
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