Legnica is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River and the Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 31 December 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is the seat of the county and since 1992 the city has been the seat of a Diocese. As of 2023, Legnica had a population of 97,300 inhabitants.
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heavy industry, mining, and the Silesian language.
Pomerelia, also known as Eastern Pomerania, Vistula Pomerania, prior to World War II also known as Polish Pomerania, is a historical sub-region of Pomerania on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea. The designation of Gdańsk Pomerania, is largely coextensive with Pomerelia, but slightly narrower, as it does not cover the Chełmno Land.
The Pomeranians, first mentioned as such in the 10th century, were a West Slavic tribe, which from the 5th to the 6th centuries had settled at the shore of the Baltic Sea between the mouths of the Oder and Vistula Rivers. They spoke the Pomeranian language that belonged to the Lechitic languages, a branch of the West Slavic language family.
The "former eastern territories of Germany" refer in present-day Germany to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany, i.e., the Oder–Neisse line, which historically had been considered German and which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union after World War II in Europe. In many of these territories, Germans used to be the dominant or sole ethnicity. In contrast to the lands awarded to the restored Polish state by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the German territories lost with the Potsdam Agreement after World War II in Europe on 2 August 1945 were either almost exclusively inhabited by Germans before 1945, mixed German-Polish with a German majority, or mixed German-Czech with a German majority (Glatz). Virtually the entire German population of the territories that did not flee voluntarily in the face of the Red Army advance of 1945, was expelled to Germany, with their possessions being expropriated.
Lubusz Land is a historical region and cultural landscape in Poland and Germany on both sides of the Oder river.
The Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania (Griffins). The country had existed in the Middle Ages, in years 1121–1160, 1264–1295, 1478–1531 and 1625–1637.
In the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C., Silesia belonged to the Lusatian culture. About 500 BC Scyths arrived, and later Celts in the South and Southwest. During the 1st century BC Silingi and other Germanic people settled in Silesia. For this period we have written reports of antique authors who included the area. Slavs arrived in this territory around the 6th century. The first known states in Silesia were those of Greater Moravia and Bohemia. In the 10th century, Mieszko I incorporated Silesia into Civitas Schinesghe, a Polish state. It remained part of Poland until the Fragmentation of Poland. Afterwards it was divided between Piast dukes, descendants of Władysław II the Exile, High Duke of Poland.
This article covers the history of Poland in the Middle Ages. This time covers roughly a millennium, from the 5th century to the 16th century. It is commonly dated from the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and contrasted with a later Early Modern Period. The time during which the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance and the Reformation unfolded is generally associated with the transition out of the Middle Ages, with European overseas expansion as a succeeding process, but such dates are approximate and based upon nuanced arguments.
Grodków is a town in Brzeg County, Opole Voivodeship in Poland, the administrative seat of Gmina Grodków. It is located in the Silesian Lowlands of the Oder basin, in the historic Upper Silesia region, about 20 km (12 mi) south of Brzeg. In the north, it has access to the A4 autostrada. The town has 8,595 inhabitants (2019).
Lebus is a historic town in the Märkisch-Oderland District of Brandenburg, Germany. It is the administrative seat of Amt Lebus. The town, located on the west bank of the Oder river at the border with Poland, was the centre of the historical region known as Lubusz Land, which provides the name for the present-day Polish Lubusz Voivodeship.
The German town law or German municipal concerns was a set of early town privileges based on the Magdeburg rights developed by Otto I. The Magdeburg law became the inspiration for regional town charters not only in Germany, but also in Central and Eastern Europe who modified it during the Middle Ages. The German town law was used in the founding of many German cities, towns, and villages beginning in the 13th century.
The most important phenomenon that took place within the lands of Poland in the Early Middle Ages, as well as other parts of Central Europe was the arrival and permanent settlement of the West Slavic or Lechitic peoples. The Slavic migrations to the area of contemporary Poland started in the second half of the 5th century AD, about a half century after these territories were vacated by Germanic tribes fleeing from the Huns. The first waves of the incoming Slavs settled the vicinity of the upper Vistula River and elsewhere in the lands of present southeastern Poland and southern Masovia. Coming from the east, from the upper and middle regions of the Dnieper River, the immigrants would have had come primarily from the western branch of the early Slavs known as Sclaveni, and since their arrival are classified as West Slavs and Lechites, who are the closest ancestors of Poles.
Pomerania during the Early Middle Ages covers the History of Pomerania from the 7th to the 11th centuries.
Pomerania during the High Middle Ages covers the history of Pomerania in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Walddeutsche was the name for a group of German-speaking people, originally used in the 16th century for two language islands around Łańcut and Krosno, in southeastern Poland. Both of them were fully polonised before the 18th century, the term, however, survived up to the early 20th century as the designation na Głuchoniemcach, broadly and vaguely referring to the territory of present-day Sanockie Pits, which has seen a partial German settlement since the 14th century, mostly Slavicised long before the term was coined.
The Recovered Territories or Regained Lands, also known as the Western Borderlands, and previously as the Western and Northern Territories, Postulated Territories and Returning Territories, are the former eastern territories of Germany and the Free City of Danzig that became part of Poland after World War II, at which time most of their German inhabitants were forcibly deported.
Rychtal is a village in Kępno County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Rychtal.
The period of rule by the Piast dynasty between the 10th and 14th centuries is the first major stage of the history of the Polish state. The dynasty was founded by a series of dukes listed by the chronicler Gall Anonymous in the early 12th century: Siemowit, Lestek and Siemomysł. It was Mieszko I, the son of Siemomysł, who is now considered the proper founder of the Polish state at about 960 AD. The ruling house then remained in power in the Polish lands until 1370. Mieszko converted to Christianity of the Western Latin Church in an event known as the Baptism of Poland in 966, which established a major cultural boundary in Europe based on religion. He also completed a unification of the Lechitic tribal lands that was fundamental to the existence of the new country of Poland.
Ostsiedlung is the term for the Early Medieval and High Medieval migration of ethnic Germans into the territories in the eastern part of Francia, East Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire and beyond; and the consequences for settlement development and social structures in the areas of settlement. Generally sparsely and in some inland areas only relatively recently populated by Slavic, Baltic and Finnic peoples, the most settled area was known as Germania Slavica. Other regions were also settled, though not as heavily. The Ostsiedlung encompassed multiple modern and historical regions such as Germany east of the Saale and Elbe rivers, the states of Lower Austria and Styria in Austria, Livonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Transylvania in Romania.
