Gdańsk

Long Market

The Old Arsenal

Royal Chapel

St.Mary Church

Mariacka Street

Torture House

Panorama City

Medieval port crane

Upland Gate

Uphagen House

Golden House

Neptune Fountain

Gdańsk University of Technology

Polish Baltic Philharmonic

Artus' Court

Green Gate

Main Town Hall

Gdańsk Główny railway station

Long Market

St.Mary Church

Old town

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Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland's principal seaport and the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.

The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto), with a population near 1,400,000. Gdańsk itself has a population of 460,427 (December 2012), making it the largest city in the Pomerania region of Northern Poland.

Gdańsk is the historical capital of Gdańsk Pomerania and the largest city of Kashubia. The city was close to the former late medieval boundary between West Slavic and Germanic seized lands and it has a complex political history with periods of Polish rule, periods of German rule, and extensive self-rule, with two spells as a free city. Between the World Wars, the Free City of Danzig was in a customs union with Poland and was located between German East Prussia and the "Polish corridor" to the sea where the harbour of Gdynia grew up. Gdańsk has been part of modern Poland since 1945.

Gdańsk is situated at the mouth of the Motława River, connected to the Leniwka, a branch in the delta of the nearby Vistula River, whose waterway system supplies 60% of the area of Poland and connects Gdańsk to the national capital in Warsaw. This gives the city a unique advantage as the center of Poland's sea trade. Together with the nearby port of Gdynia, Gdańsk is also an important industrial centre. Historically an important seaport and shipbuilding centre, Gdańsk was a member of the Hanseatic League.

The city was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement which under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa, played a major role in bringing an end to Communist rule across Central Europe.
Parts of the historic old city of Gdańsk, which had suffered large-scale destruction during the war, were rebuilt during the 1950s and 1960s. The reconstruction was not tied to the city's pre-war appearance, instead its politically motivated purpose was to rebuild a pre-German city. Any traces of German tradition were ignored, suppressed, or regarded as "Prussian barbarism" worthy of demolition while Flemish-Dutch, Italian and French influences were emphasized.

Boosted by heavy investment in the development of its port and three major shipyards for Soviet ambitions in the Baltic region, Gdańsk became the major shipping and industrial center of the Communist People's Republic of Poland.

In December 1970, Gdańsk was the scene of anti-regime demonstrations, which led to the downfall of Poland's communist leader Władysław Gomułka. During the demonstrations in Gdańsk and Gdynia, military as well as the police opened fire on the demonstrators causing several dozen deaths. Ten years later, in August, 1980, Gdańsk Shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement, whose opposition to the Communist regime led to the end of Communist Party rule in 1989, and sparked a series of protests that successfully overturned the Communist regimes of the former Soviet bloc. Solidarity's leader, Lech Wałęsa became President of Poland in 1990.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gda%C5%84sk