An introduction to Wrocław
For someone who knows nothing about the city yet: where it is, a little of its past, how to say its name, money, getting about and the weather. Each part links to the page that goes further.
Where and what
Land and borders: Natural Earth, public domain. Wrocław's boundary, rivers and motorways: map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the ODbL.
Wrocław is a city on the Odra in Lower Silesia, in south-western Poland. It is the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (province). The river splits into branches around the centre; the islands and bridges page follows it.
Statistics Poland (GUS) counted 672,601 residents of Wrocław on 31 December 2025.
History, a little
A Piast stronghold stood on Cathedral Island, and in 1000 a bishopric was founded there. The city passed to the Crown of Bohemia in 1335, to the Habsburgs in 1526 and to Prussia in 1741; as Breslau it later became part of Germany. Held as a fortress and besieged in 1945, it became part of Poland that August. Its German inhabitants fled or were expelled, and the population was replaced almost entirely.
The language and the name
The language is Polish, Poland’s official language. A few words a visitor uses every day:
| Polish | English |
|---|---|
| dzień dobry | good morning, good afternoon |
| dziękuję | thank you |
| proszę | please; also “here you are”, when handing something over |
How to say Wrocław
Wrocław is said [ˈvrɔt͡swaf], roughly “VROTS-wahf”: the W is said like an English v, the ł like an English w, and the stress falls on the first syllable. In German the city is Breslau. Hear it said on Wikimedia Commons (a recording under CC BY-SA 3.0).
Getting about
The Old Town and the islands are seen on foot: the three-hour walk goes from the main station to the Market Square and Cathedral Island and back. For the rest of the city there are trams and buses, run by MPK Wrocław, and you can pay by tapping a contactless bank card on the validator inside. Fares, tickets and the other ways to travel are on getting around.
Money
The currency is the złoty (PLN), divided into 100 groszy. Poland does not use the euro.
Changing cash
A kantor is a currency exchange office. Running one requires an entry in a register kept by the President of the National Bank of Poland (NBP), and the kantor must give you a receipt for every exchange. You can look a kantor up in NBP’s register, which is in Polish.
Paying by card: choose złoty
A card terminal or cash machine may offer to charge you in your own currency instead of in złoty. That is dynamic currency conversion: the operator of the machine sets the exchange rate, and it is often worse than your bank’s. Choose złoty (PLN), and your own bank converts the payment at its rate.
For cards issued in the European Union, the machine must tell you before you pay what it adds on top of the European Central Bank’s reference rate, and that you can pay in złoty instead.
Weather by season
Averages over thirty years, 1991–2020, measured at the Wrocław station of Poland’s Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW-PIB). They describe a typical year, not any particular week.
- Winter (December to February): monthly means from 0.0 to 1.1 °C, and the average night-time low below freezing in all three months.
- Spring (March to May): the monthly mean rises from 4.3 °C in March to 14.3 °C in May.
- Summer (June to August): average daytime highs of 23.4 to 25.6 °C. July is the warmest month and also the wettest, with 91.4 mm of rain on average.
- Autumn (September to November): the monthly mean falls from 14.5 °C in September to 4.8 °C in November.
| Month | Mean | High | Low | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 0.0 | 3.0 | −3.3 | 28.3 |
| February | 1.1 | 4.7 | −2.5 | 25.6 |
| March | 4.3 | 9.0 | 0.0 | 35.0 |
| April | 9.7 | 15.3 | 3.8 | 31.2 |
| May | 14.3 | 20.0 | 8.3 | 59.6 |
| June | 17.7 | 23.4 | 12.0 | 65.4 |
| July | 19.7 | 25.6 | 13.9 | 91.4 |
| August | 19.3 | 25.4 | 13.4 | 59.5 |
| September | 14.5 | 20.0 | 9.4 | 48.4 |
| October | 9.6 | 14.3 | 5.2 | 37.6 |
| November | 4.8 | 8.3 | 1.3 | 31.4 |
| December | 1.1 | 4.1 | −2.1 | 27.9 |
| Year | 9.7 | 14.4 | 5.0 | — |