Libiąż

Sister cities

• Corciano
• Rouvroy

History

The first historical mention of Libiąż comes from the chronicles of Jan Długosz. It mentioned the transfer of the settlements of Libiąż Wielki ("Great Libiąż") and Libiąż Mały ("Little Libiąż") to the Benedictines by the Griffin family in 1243. Throughout centuries Libiąż passed successively in the possession of various noble families. Following the fragmentation of Poland in 1138, it belonged to the Seniorate Province, then possibly temporarily passed to the Duchy of Racibórz after 1179. Later on, it was administratively located in the Kraków County in the Kraków Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1735, Count Wielopolski founded the Catholic parish of the Transfiguration. Libiąż was annexed by Austria in the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. It was regained by Poles in the Austro-Polish War of 1809 and included within the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. After its dissolution, it was part of the Free City of Kraków from 1815 to 1846, when it was reannexed by the Austrian Empire. Until the nineteenth century it was a typical agricultural settlement. Construction of the railway line from Kraków to Vienna had caused migration and settlement of the population in these areas. The turning point in the history of Libiąż came when rich deposits of coal were discovered in the late nineteenth century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the construction of a Janina Coal Mine, which since 1907 operates to this raw material. This has opened up new prospects for Libiąż. The local inhabitants were given jobs, and the town began to be attractive also for people from the outside. From that moment began a rapid economic and cultural development of the settlement. Skilled workers and intelligentsia came to Libiąż, and the urban landscape…