Gorzow

Sister cities

• Cava de' Tirreni
• Teramo
• Eberswalde
• Saransk
• Frankfurt (Oder)
• Herford
• Voronezh
• Jönköping Municipality
• Jeddah
• Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
• Sumy

History

During the reign of the first Polish monarchs of the Piast dynasty there was a craft and trade settlement and until the mid-13th century, the land where the river Kłodawka meets the Warta was the location of a defensive fort established by the Polish Piast dynasty. In 1249 the Silesian Duke Bolesław II Rogatka had sold Lubusz Land in the west to the Ascanian Margraves of Brandenburg, and the city of Landisberch Nova (named after Altlandsberg) was founded on the site in 1257. The city was at that time an eastern outpost of the newly established Neumark region of Brandenburg, close to the Greater Polish fortress of Santok. After a war broke out over control of the region in 1319, the town came under control of the Duchy of Pomerania, but by 1325 it fell to Brandenburg again. In 1325 Polish, in 1432 Hussite troops beleaguered the city. In 1373 the city became part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (or Czech Lands), ruled by the Luxembourg dynasty. In 1402, the Luxembourgs reached an agreement with Poland in Kraków. Poland was to buy and re-incorporate Gorzów and the surrounding region, but eventually the Luxembourgs sold the city to the Teutonic Order. In 1454, after the Thirteen Years’ War broke out, the Teutonic Knights sold the city to Brandenburg in order to raise funds for war against Poland. In the 16th century, the city became Lutheran, with St. Mary's Cathedral changing its allegiance in 1537. In 1701 Landsberg (Gorzów) became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. On 4 February 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Ataman Aleksandr Chernichev and his Cossack troops defeated a French battalion of 1,500 men of Louis-Nicolas Davout's corps. In 1815 – in the course of an administrative restructuring – the town became part of Prussia's Province of Brandenburg. One of…