Strzyżów is a town in Strzyżów County,

Subcarpathian Voivodeship Subcarpathian Voivodeship or Subcarpathia Province (in pl, Województwo podkarpackie ) is a voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshall, it i ...

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 ...

, along the

Wisłok Wisłok is a river in south-eastern Poland, a tributary of the San River, with a length of 220 kilometres and a basin area of 3,538 km2 (all in Poland). The root of the name ''Vis-lok'' is Indo-European or pre-Indo-European. The first meta ...

river valley. Strzyżów is one of the towns within the Strzyżowsko-Dynowskie Foothill, located south-east of

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

and 30 km from

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ; la, Resovia; yi, ריישא ''Raisha'')) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów has been the capital of the Subcarpathian ...

. According to

statistics Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...

from June 30, 2010 from GUS (the Central Statistical Office in Poland), there are 8,782 inhabitants.

History

The history of Strzyżów dates back to the 9th century, to the times of the

Wiślanie The Vistulans, or Vistulanians ( pl, Wiślanie), were an early medieval Lechitic tribe inhabiting the western part of modern Lesser Poland."The main tribe inhabiting the reaches of the Upper Vistula and its tributaries was the Vislane (Wislanie ...

tribe (Vistulans) when a legendary pagan Vistulan prince is said to have built a watchtower by Stobnica and

river called "Strzeżno", for the defence of eastern borders of his land. In 1279, in

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

(Hungary), the Pope's legate named Bishop Philip confirmed the abbot's right to take a special tax (a tithe) from

Czudec Czudec is a town in Strzyżów County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Czudec. It lies in Lesser Poland, approximately north-east of Strzyżów and south-we ...

and Strzyżów. Strzyżów obtained city rights between 1373 and 1397. The town was surrounded by a soil defence embankment (Zawale Street still exists and it relates to that embankment). These were the times of town splendour and its development, craft, farming and trade contracts with other towns in what is now Poland, Hungary and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...

. In 1373, Strzyżów came into the hands of a knight, Wojtko, and later Pakosz and his sons Jan and Mikołaj. With time the town changed its owners. On 15 August 1769 the Bar Confederates made an oath in front of the painting of Immaculate Mary in Strzyżów, in the presence of

Casimir Pulaski Kazimierz Michał Władysław Wiktor Pułaski of the Ślepowron coat of arms (; ''Casimir Pulaski'' ; March 4 or March 6, 1745 Makarewicz, 1998 October 11, 1779) was a Polish nobleman, soldier, and military commander who has been called, tog ...

and Franciszek Trzecielski. After this event, that image appeared on the Confederates’ Banner. In 1796 the foundation of secular school strengthened town development as well as royal permission for organisation of four fairs a year from 1684. Following the

partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

in the late 18th century, the town became part of

Austrian Galicia The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria,, ; pl, Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii, ; uk, Королівство Галичини та Володимирії, Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii; la, Rēgnum Galiciae et Lodomeriae also known as ...

. Throughout its history Strzyżów suffered from as many as nine fires, the last one in 1895 caused the populace to build buildings solely from brick. By 1880 Strzyżów was inhabited mostly by Poles, but there were also significant minorities such as the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

. In 1918, the town returned to Poland (

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...

). The 1960s and 1970s gave beginning to

industrialisation Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

; many factories, companies, schools and cultural centres were founded in the town's vicinity.

Schools

Adam Mickiewicz Secondary School

Technical Schools

Municipal Schools

White Eagle Primary School No. 1
* Maria Konopnicka Primary School No. 2 * Public Middle School No. 1
Zygmunt Mycielski National School of Music - 1st degree
* Career Development Center

Notable residents

* Mieczysław G. Bekker (1905–1989), engineer and scientist

International relations

Twin towns — Sister cities

Strzyżów is twinned with:

References