Kraków

Kraków (pronounced: ['krakuf]; in full Royal Capital City of Krakow, Polish: Królewskie Stołeczne Miasto Kraków) is one of the oldest and largest cities in Poland. In 2014, 759,800 people lived in Kraków. It is on the Vistula river. Krakow is the capital of Lesser Poland Voivodeship (województwo małopolskie); before that it was the capital of Kraków Voivodship (since 14th century).

Wawel

Coat of arms

Flag

During the mid-early 19th century, Krakow became an independent city-state, under the name of "The Free, Independent and Strictly Neutral City of Krakow". However, it was annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1846.

Pope John Paul II was raised in Krakow and was its archbishop from 1964 until he was elected as Pope in 1978. When it was later announced that the city will host World Youth Day in 2016, it will be a tribute to the late Pope who became a saint in 2014.

From 2002 to 2014, the mayor of the city was Jacek Majchrowski. His successor was Aleksander Miszalski.

During World War II, there was once a ghetto in the city which held mostly the Jews of Kraków. The ghetto was liquidated for the final time in March 1943, with most of its inhabitants sent to the Treblinka extermination camp.

Sister cities

Kraków is twinned, or maintains close relations with:

Bordeaux, France Bratislava, Slovakia Budapest, Hungary Cambridge, Mass., USA Curitiba, Brazil Cusco, Peru Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Fes, Morocco Florence, Italy Frankfurt, Germany Göteborg, Sweden

Grozny, Russia Innsbruck, Austria Kyiv, Ukraine Lahore, Pakistan La Serena, Chile Leipzig, Germany Leuven, Belgium Lviv, Ukraine Milan, Italy Nuremberg, Germany Orléans, France

Pécs, Hungary Rochester, NY, USA Quito, Ecuador St Petersburg, Russia San Francisco, CA, USA Seville, Spain Solothurn, Switzerland Tbilisi, Georgia Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria Vilnius, Lithuania Zagreb, Croatia

Related pages

• Trams in Kraków

Other websites

• Official website of the city