Wrocław

History

A thousand years on the Odra, under Piast, Bohemian, Habsburg, Prussian, German and Polish rule. The colour of the line says who was governing.

The city, in order

  1. c. 1000

    Piast Poland

    A bishopric on the island

    A Piast stronghold stood on Ostrów Tumski, the island in the Odra. In 1000, at the Congress of Gniezno, a bishopric was founded here, under the new archbishopric of Gniezno. A cathedral has stood on that spot ever since.

  2. 1241

    Piast Poland

    The Mongols

    Facing the Mongol invasion, the town was abandoned and burned on the duke’s orders, and its people sheltered in the castle.

  3. 1241–1261

    Piast Poland

    Re-founded, then given its own law

    The town was re-founded in 1241 or 1242, and the Rynek dates from that new layout. Twenty years later, in 1261, it took Magdeburg law and with it the right to govern itself.

  4. 1335

    Bohemia

    To the Crown of Bohemia

    From 1335 the city and its duchy were under Bohemian sovereignty, and shared the political fate of Silesia.

  5. 1526

    The Habsburgs

    To the Habsburgs

    In 1526 Wrocław passed with the rest of Silesia to the Habsburgs. It was governed from Vienna for two centuries.

  6. 1741

    Prussia

    Prussia takes Silesia

    Prussia took the city in the First Silesian War: from 1741, and formally from 1742. As Breslau it became the capital of the Prussian province of Silesia, and later part of Germany.

    A hand-coloured bird's-eye plan of the walled city between 1742 and 1750, the Odra and its islands running through it, drawn by Friedrich Bernhard Werner.

    Breslau from the air, before anyone could fly: the walled city on both banks of the Odra with its islands, drawn by Friedrich Bernhard Werner between 1742 and 1750, the first years of Prussian rule.

    Friedrich Bernhard Werner Wikimedia Commons Public domain

  7. 1806–1807

    Prussia, under French occupation

    Siege, and the walls come down

    French forces under Jérôme Bonaparte besieged the city from late 1806, and it capitulated on 5 January 1807. Napoleon then ordered most of Silesia’s fortresses demolished, to weaken Prussia for the future. Wrocław’s came down, and the city began to spread past the line they had held it to.

    An engraved plan of the city ringed by star-shaped bastions and water defences, with the bastions numbered and listed down the side.

    The city as a fortress at the moment of the French siege of 1806–07. The ring of bastions and outworks is numbered I to XXI and named down the right-hand margin — Schießwerder, Oder-Kronwerk, Mühlberg-Schanze, Hunde-Bastion, Zwinger-Bastion and the rest. These are the works Napoleon ordered demolished in 1807.

    Gustav Höcker Wikimedia Commons Public domain

  8. 1811

    Prussia

    One university out of two

    The Catholic Leopoldina of Wrocław and the Protestant Viadrina, moved from Frankfurt an der Oder, were merged into a single state university — the ancestor of the University of Wrocław.

  9. 1813

    Prussia

    Breslau calls Prussia to arms

    Frederick William III took refuge here in January 1813, the city being free of the French, and it was from Wrocław on 17 March that he issued his proclamation An Mein Volk, calling Prussians, Silesians and others to rise against Napoleon.

  10. 1945

    Germany

    Festung Breslau

    The city was refortified and held as a fortress. It was besieged from February, and the remaining German forces were defeated in May. Much of it was left in ruins.

    Damaged tenement houses on the Market Square in 1947, their upper floors burnt out, with people walking past and a gutted building at the corner.

    Fot. Bogdan Celichowski. Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0

    A 1946 postcard captioned “Wrocław oskarża: Fragment Uniwersytetu”, showing the damaged university building on an empty street, its stonework blackened and lettering painted on the wall at street level.

    A postcard printed in Wrocław in 1946, captioned Wrocław oskarża: Fragment Uniwersytetu — “Wrocław accuses: a fragment of the University”. The series was published to document what the siege had left.

    National Library of Poland Wikimedia Commons Public domain original

  11. 1945–1948

    Poland

    A city, and almost everyone in it, changes

    In August 1945 Wrocław became part of Poland. Its German inhabitants had fled or were expelled over the following years, and the population was replaced almost entirely. Many of the newcomers came from Lwów, now Lviv in Ukraine.

    Workers clearing rubble by hand beside a truck and a bulldozer on a cleared site, with gutted buildings and a damaged tower standing behind.

    Rubble being cleared by hand, by truck and by bulldozer. Much of the brick recovered from Wrocław’s ruins was shipped east to rebuild Warsaw.

    Wojskowa Agencja Fotograficzna Wikimedia Commons Public domain

  12. 1946–1985

    Poland

    What came west with them

    The Ossolineum, founded in Lwów in 1817, was re-established here with part of its collection. The Panorama Racławicka came in 1946 and went on show in 1985.

    The brick Gothic church standing roofless and burnt after the war, its windows empty and a young tree growing in front, before it was rebuilt.

    H.Z. Wikimedia Commons Public domain

  13. June 1997

    Poland

    The Eucharistic Congress

    The 46th International Eucharistic Congress was held in the city, and John Paul II celebrated its closing Mass here on 1 June.

  14. July 1997

    Poland

    The flood

    A month later the Odra flooded the city. It is remembered in Poland as the flood of the millennium.

    A flooded courtyard between tenement blocks in July 1997, parked cars submerged to their roofs in brown water.

    Aleksander Sikora Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

    A small brass plate fixed to a wall, lettered “13 lipca 1997 — poziom wody w czasie powodzi”, marking how high the water stood.

    The plate reads 13 lipca 1997 · POZIOM WODY W CZASIE POWODZI — 13 July 1997, the water level during the flood. It is fixed to the NOT building on ulica Piłsudskiego, at the height the water reached.

    Grzegorz W. Tężycki Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

  15. 2016

    Poland

    European Capital of Culture

    Wrocław was a European Capital of Culture for 2016.

    A bronze plaque set into granite cobbles, lettered 2016 EUROPEJSKA STOLICA KULTURY beside a face in relief.

    One marker of the History Path, a trail of plaques set into the pavement around the city. This one records 2016, the year Wrocław was a European Capital of Culture.

    Panek Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Checked 5 October 2026 Where accounts of the same event differ, this page says so rather than choosing. How much of the city was destroyed in 1945 is one of those: the figures in circulation disagree, and none has a source this page accepts, so it gives none.

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