City Information
overview
Gdansk, also known by its German name Danzig, is the sixth-largest city in Poland and is Poland's principal seaport and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship.
The city lies on the southern coast of Gdansk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdynia and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the greater Gdansk or the Tricity (Trójmiasto) with a population of over a million people.
Gdansk, with a population of 458,053 (2006), is the largest city in the province of Eastern Pomerania, and present region of Gdansk Pomerania. To the West lies the Kashubian Tricity (Rumia, Reda, and Wejherowo), while Pruszcz Gdanski is to the south.
Gdansk is situated at the mouth of the Motlawa River, connected to the Leniwka, a branch in the delta of the Vistula, whose waterway system connects 60% of the area of Poland. This gives the city a unique advantage as the centre of Poland's sea trade.
Historically an important seaport since medieval times and subsequently a principal ship-building centre, Gdansk was a member of the Hanseatic League. The city is famous worldwide as the birthplace of the Solidarity movement which, under the leadership of Lech Walesa, played a major role in bringing an end to Communist rule in the Eastern Bloc. Today Gdansk remains an important industrial centre, together with the nearby port of Gdynia.
