Piła

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Piła

(Flag)	(Coat of arms)


Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Greater Poland
Municipal government	Rada Miasta Piły
Mayor	Zbigniew Kosmatka
Area	102,67 km²
Population - city - urban - density	76 300 none 743/km²
Founded	15th century
City rights	before 1513
Latitude Longitude	53° 09' N 16° 44' E
Area code	+48 67
Car plates	PP
Twin towns	Châtellerault, Cuxhaven, Kronstadt, Schwerin
Municipal Website

Piła (German: Schneidemühl) is a town in northwestern Poland. It had 77,000 inhabitants as of 2001. It is situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship (since 1999), previously capital of Piła Voivodeship (1975-1998). Piła is the largest town in the northern part of Greater Poland. It is the capital of Piła County. The town is located on the Gwda river and is famous for its green areas, parks and dense forests nearby. It is an important road and railway hub.

1 City name
2 History
3 Economy
- 3.1 Major corporations
4 Sports
5 Politics
- 5.1 Piła constituency
6 External links

[edit] City name

Piła is a Polish word meaning "saw". This was a typical name denoting a village of woodcutters belonging to a local noble. The German name Schneidemühl means "sawmill".

[edit] History

Piła was founded in 1380 with Magdeburg rights as a small village of partly ethnic German woodcutters invited by the local Slavic rulers. The document was most probably issued by Queen Jadwiga of Poland, but it has not survived. The first mention of Piła comes from a church document dated March 31, 1451. Piła soon grew and became a private town of the Opaliński family. In 1480 Maciej Opaliński ceded the town to King Casimir IV Jagiellon. On March 4, 1513 the town was relocated by King Sigismund I the Old, who regranted it Magdeburg rights, including self-government and great economical autonomy. Because of that it soon became one of the main centres of wood industry in the area with several sawmills and a paper factory.

In the 16th century the town was rented by the Bnińscy and Górkowie families, who founded the local Gothic city hall. In 1503 the town had 153 houses, two churches and the city hall, as well as several guilds. In 1605 King Sigismund III Vasa gave Piła to his second wife, Constance of Austria. In 1626 a fire destroyed most of the city, as only two buildings were made of brick. Piła was rebuilt rapidly thanks to funds granted by Constance. New houses were constructed of brick and stone and the town was reconstructed in plain Renaissance style. However, on July 24, 1655 during The Deluge, Swedish troops captured the city and pillaged it. Mostly Lutheran Piła was also pillaged and damaged during the consecutive Great Northern and Seven Years' Wars.

Piła was invaded and annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1772, shortly before the First Partition of Poland. In 1793 it was recaptured for a short period by a Polish army led Colonel Wyganowski, and, again in 1806 together with most of Great Poland, it was recaptured by the Duchy of Warsaw. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna granted it to Prussia again. The Polish language was banned from offices and education and the city saw a significant influx of German settlers. In 1834 the city was again struck by a fire that destroyed a large part of the city centre and the city archives. The city was rebuilt shortly afterwards.

Until 1846 Piła belonged to the Grand Duchy of Poznań, which was then renamed the Province of Posen of the Kingdom of Prussia, which in turn became part of the German Empire after 1871. In 1851 the city was connected to Berlin and Bromberg by a railway. In line with the Germanization policy of the Prussian and Imperial German government to replace its Polish identity with a German one, the city was renamed Schneidemühl in 1874. By the end of the 19th century the city had become one of the most important railway nodes of the region and one of the biggest towns in the Province of Posen. It was turned into a Prussian military garrison town.

Because of the German majority of its population, Schneidemühl was not included in the Polish Second Republic after World War I. After the Greater Poland Uprising, the new Polish-German border ran five km south of the city. In 1922 Schneidemühl became a centre for local administration in Posen-West Prussia. The city experienced a short period of fast growth followed by a period of decline in the early 1930s. High unemployment and the ineffectiveness of local administration led to rising support for the NSDAP. In 1938 Schneidemühl was annexed to Pomerania by decree of the Nazi government. During World War II a camp for civil prisoners-of-war "Albatros" was established. The city became part of the Pommerstellung line of fortifications. In 1945 the town was declared a Festung by Adolf Hitler. It was captured by the joint Polish and Soviet forces after two weeks of heavy fighting. 75% of the city was destroyed and almost 90% of the historic city centre was in ruins.

Resulting from the Potsdam Conference in 1945 the city became part of Poland again with the official name of Piła. The remaining local ethnic German population was forcibly expelled by Polish and Soviet troops from 1945 to 1948, while Polish refugees and colonists were resettled in the city. The historical city centre was only partially restored.

In 1975 Piła became the capital of the newly-established Piła Voivodeship, which started a period of fast development of industry in the area. Currently Piła is one of the most important cities of the region. It is famous for its green areas and parks, as well as for its speedway club Polonia Piła.

[edit] Notable people

Stanisław Staszic (1755-1826), a priest and activist of the Polish Enlightenment, also an economist of the Congress Kingdom
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1884-1945), German politician
Bishop Maximilian Kaller, first Roman Catholic church administrator of Schneidemühl

[edit] Historical attractions

19th century building of former arsenal
St. Stanislaus Kostka's church - built in Neo-Gothic style
Holy Family's church - built in Neo-baroque style
St. Anthony's church with the biggest wooden figure of Jesus in Europe, seven metres tall (church built in 1930)
museum in house of Stanisław Staszic
two war cemeteries (prisoners from World War I and Polish and Soviet soldiers killed during the battle of Wał Pomorski (Pommerstellung) during World War II); cemeteries are in uptown Piła, in Leszków.

[edit] Historical population

Year	Inhabitants
1774	1,322
1816	1,992
1843	4,111
1856	6,060
1867	7,516
1875	9,724

Year	Inhabitants
1880	11,610
1900	19,655
1910	26,126
1925	37,518
1933	43,180
1939	45,791

Year	Inhabitants
1948	10,700
1960	33,800
1970	43,700
1980	58,900
1990	71,100
1995	75,700

Year	Inhabitants
2001	77,000
2005	74,600

[edit] Economy

[edit] Major corporations

Philips Lighting Poland, Piła
Winkowski sp. z o.o., Piła

[edit] Sports

PPTS Nafta Gaz Piła - women's volleyball team playing in Polish Seria A Women's Volleyball League: 1st place 1998/1999, 1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2001/2002 in season, 3rd place in 2004/2005 season.
Joker Piła - men's volleyball team playing in Polish Volleyball League
Polonia Piła - speedway club
MKP - fourth division football club.