Gdańsk[a] is a city on the Baltic coast of northern Poland. With a population of 486,492,[8] Gdańsk is the capital and largest city of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is Poland's principal seaport and the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.[9][7] The city lies at the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay, close to the city of Gdynia and resort town of Sopot; these form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto), with a metropolitan (including rural localities) population of approximately 1.5 million.[10] Gdańsk lies at the mouth of the Motława River, connected to the Leniwka, a branch in the delta of the Vistula River, which connects Gdańsk with Warsaw.
Gdańsk is among the most visited cities in Poland, having received 3.4 million tourists according to data collected in 2019.[11] The city also hosts St. Dominic's Fair, which dates back to 1260,[12] and is regarded as one of the biggest trade and cultural events in Europe.[13] Gdańsk has also topped rankings for the quality of life, safety and living standards worldwide, and its historic city center has been listed as one of Poland's national monuments.[14][15][16][17]
Highland Gate (), which marks the beginning of the Royal Route
Brama Wyżynna
Torture House (Katownia) and Prison Tower (Wieża więzienna), now housing the Amber Museum ()
The , (SKM)[179] the Fast Urban Railway, functions as a Metro system for the Tricity area including Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia, operating frequent trains to 27 stations covering the Tricity.[180] The service is operated by electric multiple unit trains at a varying frequency.
Between 2011 and 2015, the Warsaw-Gdańsk-Gdynia railway route underwent a major upgrade. The project cost $3 billion and was partly funded by the European Investment Bank. The upgrades included track replacement, realignment of curves and relocation of sections of track to allow speeds up to 200 km/h (124 mph), modernization of stations, and installation of the most modern ETCS signalling system, which was completed in June 2015. In December 2014, new AlstomPendolino high-speed trains were put into service between Gdańsk, Warsaw and Kraków reducing the rail travel time from Gdańsk to Warsaw to 2 hours 58 minutes,[181][182] further reduced in December 2015 to 2 hours 39 minutes.[183]
Additionally, Gdańsk is part of the Rail-2-Sea project. This project's objective is to connect the city with the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța with a 3,663 km (2,276 mi) long railway line passing through Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.[185][186]
Speedway club , which competes in the second tier as of 2020, but for decades competed in Poland's top division, most recently in 2014, where it finished 2nd in 1967, 1978 and 1985;
Wybrzeże Gdańsk
Rugby club , which competes in Poland's top division, 13 times Polish champions, most recently in 2014;
Lechia Gdańsk
Handball club , which plays in the Poland's top division, 10 times Polish champions, most recently in 2001, two times European Cup runners up;
There are many popular professional sports teams in the Gdańsk and Tricity area. Amateur sports are played by thousands of Gdańsk citizens and also in schools of all levels (elementary, secondary, university).
Poles incl. relocating from nearby villages and small towns[224]
Kashubians
Settlers from central Poland migrating voluntarily
[222]
Non-Poles forcibly resettled during in 1947. Large numbers of Ukrainians were forced to move from south-eastern Poland under a 1947 Polish government operation aimed at dispersing, and therefore assimilating, those Ukrainians who had not been expelled eastward already, throughout the newly acquired territories. Belarusians living around the area around Białystok were also pressured into relocating to the formerly German areas for the same reasons. This scattering of members of non-Polish ethnic groups throughout the country was an attempt by the Polish authorities to dissolve the unique ethnic identity of groups like the Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Lemkos, and broke the proximity and communication necessary for strong communities to form.[225]
The 1923 census conducted in the Free City of Danzig indicated that of all inhabitants, 95% were German, and 3% were Polish and Kashubian. The end of World War II is a significant break in continuity with regard to the inhabitants of Gdańsk.[213]
German citizens began to flee en masse as the Soviet Red Army advanced, composed of both spontaneous flights driven by rumors of Soviet atrocities, and organised evacuation starting in the summer of 1944 which continued into the spring of 1945.[214] Approximately 1% (100,000) of the German civilian population residing east of the Oder–Neisse line perished in the fighting prior to the surrender in May 1945.[215] German civilians were also sent as "reparations labour" to the Soviet Union.[216][217]
Poles from other parts of Poland replaced the former German-speaking population, with the first settlers arriving in March 1945.[218] On 30 March 1945, the Gdańsk Voivodeship was established as the first administrative Polish unit in the Recovered Territories.[219] As of 1 November 1945, around 93,029 Germans remained within the city limits.[220] The locals of German descent who declared Polish nationality were permitted to remain; as of 1 January 1949, 13,424 persons who had received Polish citizenship in a post-war "ethnic vetting" process lived in Gdańsk.[221]
The settlers can be grouped according to their background:
