__NOTOC__ Nowy Sącz County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (

powiat A ''powiat'' (; ) is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture (Local administrative unit, LAU-1 ormerly Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, NUTS-4 ...

) in

Lesser Poland Voivodeship Lesser Poland Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a population of 3,404,863 (2019). Its capital and largest city is Kraków. The province's name recalls the traditional name of a h ...

, southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, on the Slovak border. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the

Polish local government reforms The administrative division of Poland since 1999 has been based on three levels of subdivision. The territory of Poland is divided into ''voivodeships'' (provinces); these are further divided into ''powiats'' (counties or districts), and these i ...

passed in 1998. Its administrative seat is the city of

Nowy Sącz Nowy Sącz (; ; ; ; ) is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit. With a population of 83,116 as of 2021, it is the largest city in the Beskid S ...

, although the city is not part of the county (it constitutes a separate city county). The county contains five towns:

Krynica-Zdrój Krynica-Zdrój (until 31 December 2001 Krynica, Rusyn language, Rusyn: Криниця ) is a town in Nowy Sącz County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It is inhabited by over eleven thousand people. It is the biggest spa town in Pola ...

, south-east of Nowy Sącz,

Stary Sącz Stary Sącz is a small historic town in Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the seat of the Gmina Stary Sącz (commune), and one of the oldest towns in the country, receiving Magdeburg rights in the 13th century. Geography Star ...

, south-west of Nowy Sącz, Grybów, east of Nowy Sącz,

Piwniczna-Zdrój Piwniczna-Zdrój (until 1999 Piwniczna, , ''Pivnichna'') is a town in Nowy Sącz County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland, near the border with Slovakia. Piwniczna-Zdrój is the name of both the town and its administrative district called a gmina ...

, south of Nowy Sącz, and Muszyna, south-east of Nowy Sącz. The county covers an area of . As of 2006 its total population is 197,718, out of which the population of Krynica-Zdrój is 11,243, that of Stary Sącz is 8,987, that of Grybów is 6,025, that of Piwniczna-Zdrój is 5,717, that of Muszyna is 4,980, and the rural population is 160,766.

Neighbouring counties

Apart from the city of

, Nowy Sącz County is also bordered by

Nowy Targ County Nowy Targ County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland, on the Slovak border. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government refor ...

and

Limanowa County __NOTOC__ Limanowa County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 19 ...

to the west,

Brzesko County __NOTOC__ Brzesko County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 19 ...

and

Tarnów County __NOTOC__ Tarnów County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 199 ...

to the north, and

Gorlice County __NOTOC__ Gorlice County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland, on the Slovak border. It was created on 1 January 1999 as a result of the Polish local government refo ...

to the east. It also borders

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, 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 west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

to the south.

Administrative division

The county is subdivided into 16

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 ...

s (one urban, four urban-rural and 11 rural). These are listed in the following table, in descending order of population.

Nowy Sacz County in the Past

The history of Nowy Sacz County dates back to late 13th century, when King

Wenceslaus II of Bohemia Wenceslaus II Přemyslid (; ; 27 SeptemberK. Charvátová, ''Václav II. Král český a polský'', Prague 2007, p. 18. 1271 – 21 June 1305) was King of Bohemia (1278–1305), Duke of Cracow (1291–1305), and King of Poland (1296–130 ...

granted

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 ...

to Nowy Sacz. The new town quickly became most important administrative center of the region, and the seat of a local

castellan A castellan, or constable, was the governor of a castle in medieval Europe. Its surrounding territory was referred to as the castellany. The word stems from . A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1 ...

and

starosta Starosta or starost (Cyrillic: ''старост/а'', Latin: ''capitaneus'', ) is a community elder in some Slavic lands. The Slavic root of "starost" translates as "senior". Since the Middle Ages, it has designated an official in a leadersh ...

. The county was probably established during the reign of King Kazimierz Wielki, who encouraged settlement in this sparsely populated region of his domain. Until 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 ...

, Nowy Sacz County belonged to Kraków Voivodeship. Its total area was 3900 sq. kilometers, with 12 towns (as for 1667), including Wojnicz, Czchow,

Nowy Targ Nowy Targ (Officially: ''Royal Free city of Nowy Targ'', Yiddish: ''Naymark'', Gorals, Goral dialect: ''Nowy Torg'' ) is a town in southern Poland, in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It is located in the Orava-Nowy Targ Basin at the foot of the Go ...

Zakliczyn Zakliczyn is a town in Tarnów County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland, with a population of 1,541 (2010). Zakliczyn lies on the right bank of the Dunajec river, surrounded by wooded hills above sea level. Zakliczyn has a town hall, located in ...

, Muszyna and Grybow. After the first partition of Poland (1772), Nowy Sacz County became part of Austrian Galicia, in which it remained until 1918 (for more information, see Subdivisions of Galicia). In the

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

, Nowy Sacz County was part of Kraków Voivodeship (1919–39); after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the county remained part of Krakow Voivodeship until 1975, when all counties were disbanded (see Administrative division of the Polish People's Republic).

References

Polish official population figures 2006

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nowy Sacz County Land counties of Lesser Poland Voivodeship