Węgierska Górka (Literally Polish for "Hungarian Hill") 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 ...

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

Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship ( ) is an administrative province in southern Poland. With over 4.2 million residents and an area of 12,300 square kilometers, it is the second-most populous, and the most-densely populated and most-urbanized region of Poland ...

, in the historic province of

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 ...

. 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 Węgierska Górka __NOTOC__ Gmina Węgierska Górka is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Żywiec County, Silesian Voivodeship, in southern Poland. Its seat is the village of Węgierska Górka, which lies approximately south-west of Żywiec and south of th ...

. It lies approximately south-west of

Żywiec Żywiec () is a town on the River Soła in southern Poland with 31,194 inhabitants (2019). It is situated within the Silesian Voivodeship, near the Żywiec Lake and Żywiec Landscape Park, one of the eight protected areas in the voivodeship. H ...

and south of the regional capital

Katowice Katowice (, ) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Katowice urban area. As of 2021, Katowice has an official population of 286,960, and a resident population estimate of around 315,000. K ...

Location

Węgierska Górka is located among the hills of the

Żywiec Beskids The Żywiec Beskids (; ) is a mountain range in the Outer Western Carpathians in 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 an ...

, on the

Soła The Soła () is a river in southern Poland, a right tributary of the Vistula. The Soła originates in the Western Beskids mountain range near the border with Slovakia. It is made up of the confluence of several small creeks in the Rajcza munici ...

river. For most of its existence, the village, together with Żywiec, was administratively and culturally tied with

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and Lesser Poland. Until 1975, it belonged to Kraków Voivodeship. In 1975 - 1999, it was part of

Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship The Bielsko Voivodeship ( Polish: ''Województwo bielskie'') was a voivodeship (province) of the Polish People's Republic from 1975 to 1989, and the Third Republic of Poland from 1989 to 1998. Its capital was Bielsko-Biała. It was established on ...

. Węgierska Górka is located on ''National Road Nr 69'' from Bielsko-Biała to the border with Slovakia. It has a rail station, on a line from Katowice to Skalite.

History

The village was first mentioned in documents in 1477, when Polish King

Kazimierz Jagiellończyk Casimir IV (Casimir Andrew Jagiellon; ; Lithuanian: ; 30 November 1427 – 7 June 1492) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447 until his death in 1492. He was one of the most active Polish-Lithuanian rulers; under ...

argued with Hungarian King

Matthias Corvinus Matthias Corvinus (; ; ; ; ; ) was King of Hungary and King of Croatia, Croatia from 1458 to 1490, as Matthias I. He is often given the epithet "the Just". After conducting several military campaigns, he was elected King of Bohemia in 1469 and ...

over the shape of the border between the two nations. In 1706,

Franciszek Wielopolski Count Franciszek Wielopolski (died 8 April 1732) was a Polish noble (szlachcic). He was the son of Deputy and Grand Chancellor Jan Wielopolski and Konstancja Krystyna Komorowska. He married Teresa Magdalena Tarło and in 1711 Anna Lubomirska, t ...

opened here a

folwark ''Folwark'' is a Polish word derived from the German ''Vorwerk''. A Folwark or Vorwerk is an agricultural estate or a separate branch operation of such an estate, historically a serfdom-based farm and agricultural enterprise (a type of latif ...

, calling it Węgierska Górka. In 1838 Adam Wielopolski founded here ironworks, and two years later, 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 completed. At that time, Węgierska Górka belonged to the Austrian province of Galicia, which was the result of 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 ...

. After a few years, the ''Węgierska Górka Ironworks'' became one of the largest such enterprises in Galicia. In 1884, Węgierska Górka received a rail connection with other locations, and the village quickly grew in size and population. 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 ...

, Węgierska Górka became a popular winter sports center, and a mountain spa. In September 1939, the village was the site of the

Battle of Węgierska Górka The Battle of Węgierska Górka was a two-day-long defence of a Polish fortified area in south of Żywiec Region (Lesser Poland) during the opening stages of the Invasion of Poland of 1939. Although the Polish position was not completed and onl ...

. Polish defensive fortifications, built before

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 ...

, can still be found and visited here. In 1961 the population of the village was 2,215. A new school was opened on 23 July 1961, and in the late 1960s / early 1970s, a whole district of blocks of flats was built.

References

{{Authority control Villages in Żywiec County