Czarnków
Czarnków () is a town in Poland in Czarnków-Trzcianka County in Greater Poland Voivodeship. It has 12,000 inhabitants. The town lies on the Noteć river. Because there are many hills around the town, the area is called "Szwajcaria Czarnkowska" ("Czarnków's Switzerland"). History. The area was included within the emerging Polish state in the 10th century by its first historic ruler Mieszko I of Poland. An early Polish stronghold and settlement was founded in the 10th century. In the early 12th century, it was a stronghold of pagan Pomeranians, ruled by local Pomeranian ruler Gniewomir. It was reconquered by  Polish Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1108, and shortly after it was noted for the first time in the early 12th century "Gesta principum Polonorum" by Gallus Anonymus, the oldest Polish chronicle. Czarnków developed at the intersection of trade routes connecting Poznań with Pomerania and Wieleń with Nakło nad Notecią. During the fragmentation of Piast-ruled Poland it formed part of the Duchy of Greater Poland, and afterwards it was a private town, administratively located in the Poznań County in the Poznań Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. From 1244 until 1407 Czarnków was the  seat of a castellany. In the late 13th century Polish monarch Władysław I Łokietek granted Czarnków to the Polish noble family of Nałęcz, which then changed its name to Czarnkowski after the town. The Czarnkowski family built a new castle (first time noted in 1331 and destroyed at the end of the 17th century) and established town privileges before 1369. Czarnków remained a private town of the Czarnkowski family until the mid-17th century, and the family's Nałęcz coat of arms remains the town's coat of arms to this day. In the 16th (or 15th) century the family erected  the Gothic Saint Mary Magdalene church, which became its official burial site, and it is the most distinctive historic landmark of the town. Afterwards, the town was owned by the Polish families of Grzymułtowski, Gembicki, Naramowski, Poniatowski, Świniarski. In the 17th century Protestant refugess from Silesia settled in the town and helped develop its cloth industry. The town was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the First Partition of Poland in 1772. It was regained by Poles in 1807 and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, in 1815 it was reannexed by Prussia, and from 1871 to  1919 it also formed part of Germany. Poland regained independence after World War I in 1918, and during the Greater Poland uprising (1918–19) the town was recaptured by Polish insurgents. 21 Polish insurgents died in battle in Czarnków. Afterwards it was divided by the new German-Polish border. The western part of the town remained within Weimar Germany and was renamed "Deutsch Czarnikau" in 1920 and "Scharnikau" in 1937, while Polish Czarnków became a county seat within the Poznań Voivodeship. During the German occupation (World War II), in November 1939, the Germans murdered many inhabitants of Czarnków during large massacres  of Poles carried out in as part of the "Intelligenzaktion". In August 1944, the Germans carried out mass arrests of local members of the Home Army, the leading Polish underground resistance organization. Czarnków was eventually liberated in January 1945, and then restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. From 1975 to 1998, the town was administratively located in the Piła Voivodeship. In August 1980, employees of local factories joined the nationwide anti-communist strikes, which led to the foundation of the Solidarity organization, which played  a central role in the end of communist rule in Poland. Culture. Czarnków is a brewing center with traditions dating back to the 16th century. The local Noteckie beer is an officially protected traditional beverage, as designated the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland. International relations. Twin towns — Sister cities. Czarnków is twinned with: References.