Wyśmierzyce is a town in

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

Masovian Voivodeship Masovian Voivodeship or Mazowieckie Province (, ) and any variation thereof, is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, containing Poland's capital Warsaw. Masovian Voivodeship has an area of and had a 2019 po ...

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 ...

, with 884 inhabitants (2004). Until 2017 it was the smallest town in Poland. It lies along National Road Nr. 48, on the right, southern bank of the

Pilica River The Pilica is a river in central Poland, and the longest left tributary of the Vistula river, with a length of 333 kilometres (8th longest). All 9,258 km2 of its basin area is in Poland.Mazovia Mazovia or Masovia ( ) is a historical region in mid-north-eastern Poland. It spans the North European Plain, roughly between Łódź and Białystok, with Warsaw being the largest city and Płock being the capital of the region . Throughout the ...

, and is located close to its border with

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 ...

. The area of the town is approximately .

History

Until the late 17th century, the name of the town was spelled ''Wyszemierzyce'' (also ''Vyszemierzice'' and ''Wyssemierzyce''). The name comes from a male given name Wyszemir. Wyśmierzyce was 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 ...

on December 12, 1338. In 1378, first Roman Catholic parish was opened here, and in 1657, the town was completely destroyed by the army of Transilvanian prince

George II Rakoczi George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorg ...

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 ...

. The town was administratively located in the Warka County in the

in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland, however by the 18th century it was transferred to the

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 ...

in the Lesser Poland Province. Following the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polis ...

, in 1795, it fell to

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, within which it was administratively part of so-called

West Galicia New Galicia or West Galicia ( or ''Galicja Zachodnia''; or ''Westgalizien'') was an administrative region of the Habsburg monarchy, constituted from the territory annexed in the course of the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The Austrian E ...

. It was regained by Poles following the

Austro–Polish War The Austro-Polish War or Polish-Austrian War was a part of the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 (a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon's French Empire and allied states). In this war, Polish forces of ...

of 1809, and included within the short-lived

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...

. Following the duchy's dissolution, the town fell to 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 ...

, from 1844 on as part of

Radom Governorate Radom Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of Congress Poland of the Russian Empire. History It was created in 1844 from the merger of the Sandomierz Governorate with Kielce Governorate. Its capital was in Radom ...

. In 1869, it was one of many towns stripped of its town rights by the Russian administration as a punishment for the unsuccessful Polish

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 ...

of 1863–1864. After

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 ...

, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of Wyśmierzyce. In 1922, town rights were restored. Within the interwar

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 ...

it was administratively part of the

Kielce Voivodeship Kielce Voivodeship () is a former unit of administrative division and the local government in Poland. It was originally formed during Poland's return to independence in the aftermath of World War One, and recreated within the new Polish borders af ...

. Between 1973 and 2017 Wyśmierzyce was the smallest town in Poland. It ceased to be the smallest town when

Wiślica Wiślica () () is a town in Busko County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Wiślica. It lies on the Nida River, approximately south of Busko-Zdrój and sout ...

, with a population of 503 (population in 2016), regained its city rights on 1 January 2018.Poland Parliament document
sejm.gov.pl

References

History of Wyśmierzyce

External links

Official town and commune webpage

Jewish Community in Wyśmierzyce
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Cities and towns in Masovian Voivodeship Białobrzegi County