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Sołectwo
A sołectwo (Polish plural: ''sołectwa'') is an administrative unit in Poland, an optional subdivision of a gmina. The actions and organs of the sołectwo are decided by the gmina council. On 31 December 2018 Poland had 40 740 sołectwa. Government and politics The legislative organ in a sołectwo is a (village meeting) and the executive is a sołtys. A sołectwo council (''rada sołecka'') provides support to the sołtys. The sołtys and the council are elected by permanent citizens of the sołectwo. A zebranie wiejskie is an example of a direct democracy, as the most important concerns of the citizens are addressed. Citizens' participation in these events varies a lot. The national average is 15%. From 2010, sołectwa can use their own budget independently if the gmina council agrees to let them to do so. In 2013 half of all gminy with sołectwa adapted to the change. Structure A sołectwo usually contains one settlement (village, przysiółek or hamlet), but sometimes ...
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Sołtys
A sołtys () is a head of a sołectwo elected by its permanent citizens in a village meeting (''zebranie wiejskie''). According to data from 2010, Poland had 40 thousand sołtys, 30.7% of which were women. Role and powers Since 1990, a sołtys is an executive of a sołectwo that is supported by a sołectwo council. The detailed powers, duties and responsibilities of the sołtys are decided in the statute made by the gmina council. The sołtys can use the legal protection of a civil servant in his favour. Duties A sołtys has the duty to: *Represent the sołectwo *Organise village meetings *Introduce laws made by the gmina to the sołectwo *Collect taxes *Participate in gmina council meetings History The office of the sołtys was introduced during the Partitions of Poland. It varied among countries. In Congress Poland, a sołtys was an executive branch of a gromada. He was supposed to guard order in the city. In Congress Poland, a gmina was made up of a few gromadas. ...
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Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Though villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighborhoods. Villages are normally permanent, with fixed dwellings; however, transient villages can occur. Further, the dwellings of a village are fairly close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement. In the past, villages were a usual form of community for societies that practice subsistence agriculture, and also for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain, a hamlet earned the right to be called a village when it built a church.
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Jastrzębie-Zdrój
Jastrzębie-Zdrój (; german: Bad Königsdorff-Jastrzemb, originally ''Jastrzemb'', cs, Lázně Jestřebí, szl, Jastrzymbie-Zdrōj or ''Jastrzymbje-Zdrůj'') is a city in south Poland with 86,632 inhabitants (2021). Its name comes from the Polish words ''jastrząb'' ("hawk") and ''zdrój'' ("spa" or "spring"). From 1861 until the 20th century, it was a spa village situated in Upper Silesia. It was granted city rights in 1963. Jastrzębie-Zdrój is currently situated in the Silesian Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Katowice Voivodeship (1975–1998). In the early 1980s, the city was one of main centers of workers' protests, which resulted in creation of Solidarity (see: Jastrzebie-Zdroj 1980 strikes). History The first written documentation, relating to this area, date back to around 1305 (''Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis''). Administratively, the town is made up of several old settlements, whose origins go back to the distant past. The original name of t ...
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Polish Language
Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In addition to being the official language of Poland, it is also used by the Polish diaspora. There are over 50 million Polish speakers around the world. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union. Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics, and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals. The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions (''ą'', ''ć'', ''ę'', ''ł'', ''ń'', ''ó'', ''ś'', ''ź'', ''ż'') to the letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet, while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet, although they are not used in native words. The traditional ...
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Kalisz
(The oldest city of Poland) , image_skyline = , image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town , image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg , flag_border = no , image_shield = POL Kalisz COA.svg , pushpin_map = Poland Greater Poland Voivodeship#Poland , pushpin_relief = 1 , pushpin_label_position = bottom , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Voivodeships of Poland, Voivodeship , subdivision_name1 = , subdivision_type2 = Powiat, County , subdivision_name2 = ''city-county'' , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Krystian Kinastowski , established_title = Established , established_date = 9th century , established_title3 = Town rights , established_date3 = after 1268 , area_total_km2 = 69.42 , population_as_of = 31 December 2021 , population_total = 97,905 (List of cities and towns in Poland, 38th) ...
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Municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the governing body of a given municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French and Latin . The English word ''municipality'' derives from the Latin social contract (derived from a word meaning "duty holders"), referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy). A municipality can be any political jurisdiction, from a sovereign state such as the Principality of Monaco, to a small village such as West Hampton Dunes, New York. Th ...
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Settlement Geography
Settlement geography is a branch of human geography that investigates the earth's surface's part settled by humans. According to the United Nations' Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements (1976), "human settlements means the totality of the human community – whether city, town or village – with all the social, material, organizational, spiritual and cultural elements that sustain it." Classification Traditionally, it belongs to cultural geography and is divided into the geography of urban settlements (cities and towns) and rural settlements (e.g. villages and hamlets). Thereby, settlements are mostly seen as elements of the cultural landscape that developed over time. Apart from Australia, Europe and India, the term is actually rarely used in English-speaking geography. One of the last English books on settlement geography was published by Cambridge University Press in the 1990s. However, it is a traditional and actual branch in many other countries (e.g., German ''Sie ...
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Wąchock Jokes
In Polish culture, Wąchock jokes are jokes about the inhabitants of the town of Wąchock, and especially their ''sołtys'' (referring to the times when Wąchock was a village). For example, one joke tells of a sołtys' cat so smart that when given some coffee with milk, he would drink all the milk and leave the coffee. There is no accepted explanation for when and why Wąchock became the butt of these jokes, although several theories exist. Wąchock jokes are typically riddle jokes, for example: "Why does nobody in Wąchock watch TV? Because the sołtys put blinds on his windows." The running joke "Wąchock for capital of Poland!" ("Wąchock stolicą Polski!") served as one of the slogans for the Good Humor Party. It fact, for several days Wąchock was a ''de facto'' capital when during the January Uprising against the Russian Empire Marian Langiewicz, the leader of the uprising, had his headquarters at Wąchock. In 2003, the Monument of the Sołtys was unveiled in Wąchock by ...
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Białołęka
Białołęka (, from ''biały'' - ''white'' and ''łąka'' - ''meadow'') is one of 18 districts of Warsaw, located in the northern part of the city. Until October 27, 2002 Białołęka was a gmina. The name ''Białołęka'' comes from a nobleman Białołęcki, who bought the area before the First World War. According to the Central Statistical Office data, the district's area is and 92 768 people inhabit Białołęka. History On the fields of Białołęka, one of the battles with the Swedish on July 28–30, 1656 took place. On February 25, 1831 one of the battles of the November Uprising - Battle of Białołęka - took place. * In 1425, the Białołęka village came into being and belonged to the Gołyński family. * During the interwar period, only the ''Różopol'' subdivision was part of Warsaw. * In 1938 Białołęka had 900 inhabitants and belonged to the Bródno municipality. * In 1951 a group of villages (including Białołęka) joined Warsaw as result of the new a ...
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Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 7th most-populous city in the European Union. The city area measures and comprises 18 districts, while the metropolitan area covers . Warsaw is an Alpha global city, a major cultural, political and economic hub, and the country's seat of government. Warsaw traces its origins to a small fishing town in Masovia. The city rose to prominence in the late 16th century, when Sigismund III decided to move the Polish capital and his royal court from Kraków. Warsaw served as the de facto capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, and subsequently as the seat of Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. Th ...
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Świnoujście
Świnoujście (; german: Swinemünde ; nds, Swienemünn; all three meaning "Świna ivermouth"; csb, Swina) is a city and seaport on the Baltic Sea and Szczecin Lagoon, located in the extreme north-west of Poland. Situated mainly on the islands of Usedom and Wolin, it also occupies smaller islands. The largest is Karsibór island, once part of Usedom, now separated by the Piast Canal, formerly the ''Kaiserfahrt'', dug in the late 19th century to facilitate ship access to Szczecin. Świnoujście directly borders the German seaside resort of Ahlbeck on Usedom, connected by a street and of beach promenade. Since 1999, Świnoujście has been a city with the administrative rights of a county ( pl, miasto na prawach powiatu), within West Pomeranian Voivodeship. It was previously part of Szczecin Voivodeship (1975–1998). The city lies in the geographic region of Pomerania and had a population of 41,516 in 2012. Świnoujście is one of the most important areas of the Szczecin met ...
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Sejny
Sejny ( lt, Seinai) is a town in north-eastern Poland and the capital of Sejny County, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, close to the northern border with Lithuania and Belarus. It is located in the eastern part of the Suwałki Lake Area ( pl, Pojezierze Suwalskie), on the Marycha river (''Seina'' in Lithuanian for which the town was named), being a tributary of the Czarna Hańcza. As of 1999 it had almost 6,500 permanent inhabitants, with a strong seasonal increase during the tourist season. Etymology According to a legend, the town of Sejny was started by three of the old knights of King of Poland Władysław II Jagiełło, who after the Battle of Grunwald granted them a land parcel in what is now Sejny. The three were very old and named the settlement ''Seni'', which is a Lithuanian word for ''Old Men''. The name was purportedly given to the city of Sejny. However, no archaeological findings or documents support this legend. The name is Yotvingian in origin. The linguist Jerzy N ...
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