Łódź | |||
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Left to right: Liberty Square • Poznański Palace • Manufaktura • Former Power Station • Łódź Fabryczna railway station • Piotrkowska Street • Tram transfer station • University of Technology • Atlas Arena • White Factory
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Motto: Ex navicula navis (From a boat, a ship) | |||
Coordinates: 51°47′N 19°28′E / 51.783°N 19.467°ECoordinates: 51°47′N 19°28′E / 51.783°N 19.467°E | |||
Country | Poland | ||
Voivodeship | Łódź | ||
County | city county | ||
City Rights | 1423 | ||
Government | |||
• Mayor | Hanna Zdanowska (PO) | ||
Area | |||
• City | 293.25 km2 (113.22 sq mi) | ||
Highest elevation | 278 m (912 ft) | ||
Lowest elevation | 162 m (531 ft) | ||
Population (30.06.2016) | |||
• City | 698,688 | ||
• Density | 2,400/km2 (6,200/sq mi) | ||
• Metro | 1,428,600 | ||
Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
• Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
Postal code | 90-001 to 94–413 | ||
Area code(s) | +48 42 | ||
Car plates | EL | ||
Website | http://www.uml.lodz.pl/ |
Łódź (/luːdʒ/, /lɒdz/,/wʊtʃ/; Polish: [wut͡ɕ]; Yiddish: לאדזש, Lodzh; also written as Lodz) is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, it has a population of 698,688 (2016). It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is approximately 135 kilometres (84 mi) south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canting: depicting a boat. It alludes to the city's name which translates literally as "boat."
Łódź was once a small settlement that first appeared in written records in around 1332. In the early 15th-century it was granted city rights, but remained a rather small and insubstantial town. It was the property of Kuyavian bishops and clergy until the end of the 18th century, when Łódź was annexed by Prussia as a result of the second partition of Poland. Following the collapse of the independent Duchy of Warsaw, the city became part of Congress Poland, a client state of the Russian Empire. It was then that Łódź experienced rapid growth in the cloth industry and in population due the inflow of migrants, most notably Germans and Jews. Ever since the industrialization of the area, the city has struggled with many difficulties such as multinationalism and social inequality, which were vividly documented in the novel The Promised Land written by Polish Nobel Prize-winning author Władysław Reymont. The contrasts greatly reflected on the architecture of the city, where luxurious mansions coexisted with redbrick factories and old tenement houses.