Wołów

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Wołów
Image:Wolow-ratusz.JPG Town hall in Wołów
Image:POL Wołów COA.svg Coat of arms
Image:Mapa lokalizacyjna v6.svg Image:Red pog2.svg Wołów
Coordinates: 51°20′N 16°37′E / 51.333, 16.617
Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Lower Silesian
Powiat	Wołów County
Gmina	Wołów
City charter	around 1285
Government
- Mayor	Witold Krochmal
Area
- Total	18.53 km² (7.2 sq mi)
Population (2006)
- Total	12,414
- Density	670/km² (1,735.3/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	56-100
Car Plates	DWL
Website: http://www.wolow.pl

Wołów (German: Wohlau) is a town with 12,414 inhabitants (as of 2006-12-31) in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship of south-western Poland. It is the capital of Wołów County.

[edit] History

First mentioned in 1157, Wołów received its town carter about 1285, with the town's name is probably derived from the Polish: word wół, which means "bull." In the Middle Ages the town had various overlords, passing for a time under the suzerainty of Bohemia. The oldest known seal of the town dates from 1473 and already shows a bull, as do all later seals. Until 1675 Wołów was a residence of the Silesian Piast dukes of Legnica-Brzeg-Wołów. In German the duchy was known as Fürstentum Wohlau or Principality of Wohlau. In 1742 it was annexed by Prussia.

For centuries the nearby Cistercian abbey of Lubiąż was a cultural centre of Lower Silesia.^[1] In January 1945 — just before town was taken by then Red Army — the Wehrmacht moved the German population into ethnic Germany. Already in the May 1945 first Poles — expelled by the Soviets from eastern part of pre-war Poland — started to settle in Wołów and Lower Silesia.

[edit] Maps

• Wohlau (Wołów) and Polnischdorf (Polska Wieś) on Austrio-Hungerian military map (1:200 000 1cm = 2km) from ca.1910

Coordinates: 51°21′N, 16°39′E

[edit] References

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