Gromada is a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

word meaning "gathering", "group", or "assembly". In 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 ...

, the term referred to 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 ...

organization which embraced all the inhabitants of a village and acted as a local authority, as well as overseeing

tax A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

payments. In this sense, the gromada developed between the 16th and 18th centuries, and continued to function in

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 ...

. Their chiefs took the title of and were elected by the local population. The gromada continued to function in

interwar Poland 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 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I. ...

, as a subdivision of a

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 ...

. In

communist Poland The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

between 1954 and 1972, gromadas constituted the lowest tier of local government, taking over the role previously played by gminas. A gromada would generally consist of several villages, but they were smaller units than the gminas had been. Examples include Gromada Osiek, Gromada Tursko Wielkie. In 1973, gminas were reintroduced and gromadas abolished. At present, the smallest unit of local government in rural Poland (subordinate to the gmina) is the .

References

{{Slavic-language terms for administrative divisions Types of administrative division Administrative divisions of Poland