Place:Warszawa, Warszawa, Poland

Alt namesVarsoviesource: Rand McNally Atlas (1994) I-183
Warsawsource: Family History Library Catalog
Warschausource: Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1984); Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1988) p 1318
Warszawasource: Getty Vocabulary Program
Warszowasource: Encyclopædia Britannica (1988) XXIX, 714 ff.
Coordinates52.25°N 21.0°E
Located inWarszawa, Poland     ( - 1998)
Also located inMazowsze, Poland     (1999 - )
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Warsaw ( ; see also other names), is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, in east-central Poland, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.729 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 2.666 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 9th most populous capital city in the European Union.[1][2] The area of the city covers , while the city's agglomeration covers .[3]

In 2012 Warsaw was ranked as the 32nd most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Today Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub.[4][5][6] Warsaw's economy, by a wide variety of industries, is characterised by FMCG manufacturing, metal processing, steel and electronic manufacturing and food processing. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, as well as Polish media industry. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is one of the largest and most important in Central Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security, is headquartered in Warsaw. A unique feature of Warsaw is its number of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings in the city center which form the skyline. Warsaw is one of only a few cities in the European Union that have such a skyline, together with Frankfurt, London and Paris.





the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Early history

The first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw were Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century).[7] After Jazdów was raided, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa. The Płock prince Bolesław II of Masovia, established this settlement, the modern Warsaw, about 1300. In the beginning of the 14th century it became one of the seats of the Dukes of Masovia, becoming the capital of Masovia in 1413.[7] 14th-century Warsaw's economy rested on crafts and trade. Upon the extinction of the local ducal line, the duchy was reincorporated into the Polish Crown in 1526.[7]

16th to 18th centuries

In 1529, Warsaw for the first time became the seat of the General Sejm, permanent from 1569.[7] In 1573 the city gave its name to the Warsaw Confederation, formally establishing religious freedom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Due to its central location between the Commonwealth's capitals of Kraków and Vilnius, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland when King Sigismund III Vasa moved his court from Kraków to Warsaw in 1596.[7] In the following years the town expanded towards the suburbs. Several private independent districts were established, the property of aristocrats and the gentry, which were ruled by their own laws. Three times between 1655–1658 the city was under siege and three times it was taken and pillaged by the Swedish, Brandenburgian and Transylvanian forces.[7][12]

In 1700, the Great Northern War broke out. The city was besieged several times and was obliged to pay heavy contributions.[13] Warsaw turned into an early-capitalistic principal city.

Stanisław II Augustus, who remodelled the interior of the Royal Castle, also made Warsaw a centre of culture and the arts.[14][15] This earned Warsaw the name of the Paris of the east.[16]

19th and 20th centuries

Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1796, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of South Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1806, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw.[7] Following the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the centre of the Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with Imperial Russia.[7] The Royal University of Warsaw was established in 1816.

Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians, the 1830 November Uprising broke out. However, the Polish-Russian war of 1831 ended in the uprising's defeat and in the curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy.[7] On 27 February 1861 a Warsaw crowd protesting against the Russian rule over Poland was fired upon by the Russian troops.[17][18] Five people were killed. The Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during January Uprising in 1863–64.[18]



Capital of Second Polish Republic: 1918–39


Second World War

After the German Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 began the Second World War, central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a German Nazi colonial administration. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish populationseveral hundred thousand, some 30% of the cityherded into the Warsaw Ghetto.[21] The city would become the centre of urban resistance to Nazi rule in occupied Europe.[22] When the order came to annihilate the ghetto as part of Hitler's "Final Solution" on 19 April 1943, Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.[23] Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month.[23] When the fighting ended, almost all survivors were massacred, with only a few managing to escape or hide.[23][24]

By July 1944, the Red Army was deep into Polish territory and pursuing the Germans toward Warsaw.[25] Knowing that Stalin was hostile to the idea of an independent Poland, the Polish government-in-exile in London gave orders to the underground Home Army (AK) to try to seize control of Warsaw from the Germans before the Red Army arrived. Thus, on 1 August 1944, as the Red Army was nearing the city, the Warsaw Uprising began.[25] The armed struggle, planned to last 48 hours, was partially successful, however it went on for 63 days. Eventually the Home Army fighters and civilians assisting them were forced to capitulate.[25] They were transported to PoW camps in Germany, while the entire civilian population was expelled.[25] Polish civilian deaths are estimated at between 150,000 and 200,000.[26]

The Germans then razed Warsaw to the ground. Hitler, ignoring the agreed terms of the capitulation, ordered the entire city to be razed to the ground and the library and museum collections taken to Germany or burned.[25] Monuments and government buildings were blown up by special German troops known as Verbrennungs- und Vernichtungskommando ("Burning and Destruction Detachments").[25] About 85% of the city had been destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle.[27]

On 17 January 1945 – after the beginning of the Vistula–Oder Offensive of the Red Army – Soviet troops entered the ruins of Warsaw, and liberated Warsaw's suburbs from German occupation.[28] The city was swiftly taken by the Soviet Army, which rapidly advanced towards Łódź, as German forces regrouped at a more westward position.

Recent times



John Paul II's visits to his native country in 1979 and 1983 brought support to the budding solidarity movement and encouraged the growing anti-communist fervor there.[30] In 1979, less than a year after becoming pope, John Paul celebrated Mass in Victory Square in Warsaw and ended his sermon with a call to "renew the face" of Poland: Let Thy Spirit descend! Let Thy Spirit descend and renew the face of the land! This land![30] These words were very meaningful for the Polish citizens who understood them as the incentive for the democratic changes.[30]

In 1995, the Warsaw Metro opened with a single line. 20 years later, in January 2015, a second line has managed to have been built and is due to open. With the entry of Poland into the European Union in 2004, Warsaw is currently experiencing the largest economic boom of its history.[31] The opening fixture of UEFA Euro 2012 took place in Warsaw, a game in which the co-hosts Poland, drew 1-1 with Greece.[32]

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