Fałków is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

Końskie County __NOTOC__ Końskie County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in ...

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship ( ), also known as Holy Cross Voivodeship, is a voivodeship (province) in southeastern Poland, in the historical region of Lesser Poland. The province's capital and largest city is Kielce. The voivodeship takes its ...

, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the

gmina The gmina (Polish: , plural ''gminy'' ) is the basic unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a municipality. , there were 2,479 gminy throughout the country, encompassing over 43,000 villages. 940 gminy include cities and tow ...

(administrative district) called

Gmina Fałków __NOTOC__ Gmina Fałków is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Końskie County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Fałków, which lies approximately west of Końskie and north-west of the re ...

. It lies in the northwestern corner of historic

Lesser Poland Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name ''Małopolska'' (; ), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a separate cult ...

, approximately west of

Końskie Końskie () is a town in south-central Poland with 20,328 inhabitants (2008), situated in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. Historically, Końskie belongs to the province of Lesser Poland, and since its foundation, until 1795 (see Partitions of P ...

and north-west of the regional capital

Kielce Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...

. In 2006 the village had a population of 1,100. Fałków had the status of a town from 1340 to 1869, when, like many other former towns in Poland, it lost that status after the

January Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

. The history of the village dates back to the 13th century, when it belonged to the influential Odrowaz family. Some time in the first half of the 14th century, the family changed its name to Falkowski, and in 1340, King

Kazimierz Wielki Casimir III the Great (; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, retaining the title throughout the Galicia–Volhynia Wars. He was the last Polish king fr ...

allowed Jakub and Piotr Falkowski to turn the village into a town, based on the

Magdeburg rights Magdeburg rights (, , ; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages gr ...

. In the

Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland (; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a monarchy in Central Europe during the Middle Ages, medieval period from 1025 until 1385. Background The West Slavs, West Slavic tribe of Polans (western), Polans who lived in what i ...

and the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

, Fałków belonged to the County of

Opoczno Opoczno () is a town in south-central Poland, seat of Opoczno County in the Łódź Voivodeship. It has a long and rich history, and in the past it used to be one of the most important urban centers of northwestern Lesser Poland. Currently, Opoczno ...

Sandomierz Voivodeship Sandomierz Voivodeship (, ) was a unit of administration and local government in Poland from the 14th century to the partitions of Poland in 1772–1795. It was part of the Lesser Poland region and the Lesser Poland Province. Originally Sandomier ...

. The town had several owners, and remained very small, with population of as little as 140 (as for 1662). After the

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...

, Fałków in 1815 became part of the Russian-controlled

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

. In the early 19th century, a

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a ...

was opened here, as the village was located in the

Old-Polish Industrial Region Old Polish Industrial Region (Polish: ''Staropolski Okręg Przemysłowy'') is an industrial region in northern part of Lesser Poland. It is the oldest and in terms of area covered, largest of Polish industrial regions. Most of the region is locat ...

. Following the

, Fałków lost its town charter (1869). During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, the village together with its ancient church was destroyed. Fałków has ruins of a 17th-century defensive manor house, which was destroyed shortly after completion, during the

Swedish invasion of Poland The Deluge was a series of mid-17th-century military campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a wider sense, it applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, comprising the Pol ...

References

External links

Fałków official website
{{Gmina Fałków Villages in Końskie County