Zagórze is the biggest, northernmost district of

Sosnowiec Sosnowiec is an industrial city county in the Dąbrowa Basin of southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, which is also part of the Silesian Metropolis municipal association.—— Located in the eastern part of the Upper Silesian Industria ...

, totally transformed with building the Huta Katowice (expanded, reached as far as ).

History

In the 10th century, the area became part of the emerging Polish state under the

Piast dynasty The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I (c. 930–992). The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir III the Great. Branch ...

. In the 11th-12th century, there was a metallurgical settlement in which

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

were smelted. The oldest known mention of Zagórze comes from a document from 1228. In the 14th century, a

motte-and-bailey castle A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to ...

was built, and it is now an archaeological site. Archaeologists discovered tools from the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

at the site. In the following centuries, Zagórze was a private village of

Polish nobility The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...

, including the Jarocki and Mieroszewski families. There is a Neoclassical palace of the Mieroszewski family in Zagórze. In 1827, it had a population of 457, which grew to 721 until the late 19th century. In 1842 a

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

smelter was established in Zagórze. In 1975, Zagórze was included within the city limits of Sosnowiec as its new district. Before that, it was a separate town in

Będzin County __NOTOC__ Będzin County ( pl, powiat będziński) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government ref ...

References

Sosnowiec Neighbourhoods in Silesian Voivodeship Archaeological sites in Poland Prehistoric sites in Poland {{Silesian-geo-stub