Zawoja is a
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 ...
in southern
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
located close to
Maków Podhalański
Maków Podhalański (known as ''Maków'' until 1930) is a town in southern Poland, on the Skawa
Skawa (german: Schaue) is a river in southern Poland, a right tributary of the Vistula. It originates in the Western Carpathians (Beskids), is lon ...
. It is situated in
Sucha County (
Lesser Poland Voivodeship). With neighbouring village of
Skawica it constitutes a rural
Zawoja Commune. It has 6,200 inhabitants (2001) and is often mentioned as one of the biggest Polish villages. It is also very often referred as the longest one as it stretches for about 20 kilometres in a picturesque mountain
valley
A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams ove ...
. It lies approximately south of
Sucha Beskidzka and south-west of the regional capital
Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
.
It is situated close to a mountain massif of
Babia Góra
Babia Góra (in Polish), or Babia hora (in Slovak), literally Old Wives' or Witches' Mountain, is a massif situated on the border between Poland and Slovakia in the Western Beskid Mountains. The name is also applied to the culmination of th ...
(1725 m). The headquarters of
Babia Góra National Park
Babia Góra National Park ( pl, Babiogórski Park Narodowy) is one of the 23 national parks in Poland, located in the southern part of the country, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, on the border with Slovakia. The park has its headquarters in the vill ...
is located here. Since 19th century Zawoja is one of the important mountain resorts in Poland. It is known for its wooden architecture and folk culture of Babia Góra
Gorals
The Gorals ( pl, Górale; Goral dialect: ''Górole''; sk, Gorali; Cieszyn Silesia dialect, Cieszyn Silesian: ''Gorole''), also known as the Highlanders (in Poland as the Polish Highlanders) are an indigenous ethnographic or ethnic group primar ...
.
See also
*
LOT Polish Airlines Flight LO 165 crashed on the nearby
Polica mountain
External links
Zawoja official web siteJewish Community in Zawojaon Virtual Shtetl
{{Authority control
Villages in Sucha County
Ski areas and resorts in Poland