Warsaw is notable among Europe’s capital cities not for its size, its age, or its beauty but for its indestructibility. It is a phoenix that has risen repeatedly from the ashes of war. Having suffered fearful damage during the Swedish and Prussian occupation of 1655–56, it was again assaulted in 1794, when the Russian army massacred the population of the right-bank suburb of Praga. In 1944, after the Warsaw Uprising failed, by Adolf Hitler’s order the city was razed; the left-bank suburbs, controlled by the Germans, were emptied of their remaining population; and the buildings were systematically reduced to rubble by fire and dynamite. In 1945, however, the people of Warsaw, the Varsovians, returned, and the city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country’s centre of social, political, economic, scientific, and cultural life. Many of the historical streets, buildings, and churches have been restored exactly according to their original forms. Since the second half of the 18th century, the emblem of Warsaw (originally a siren) has been a mermaid with sword and shield in hand, representing the creature who in legend led a prince to the site of Warsaw and ordered him to found the city. The city’s motto is, appropriately, “Contemnit procellas” (“It defies the storms”). Pop. (2011) 1,700,612.

The city is located at a meeting point of several geographic regions: Sandomierz Basin, West-Beskidian Piedmont and Polish Jurassic Highland. The history of Kraków as an organised urban centre begins around the 7th and 8th centuries Anno Domini. To this day, we can admire the remains left behind the initial settlers in the form of two mounds: Krakus and Wanda. Another crucial date in the history of the city was its reception of city rights modelled on the Magdeburg Law on the 5th June 1257, allowing the formation of the current shape of the Old Town. As a result, the Wawel Castle became the seat of the contemporary ruler of Poland. The city's location at an intersection of trade routes: from Rus' to Germany and the Kingdom of Bohemia (today's Czech Republic), and from Pomerania to Hungary, Turkey and the Balkans, allowed its fast economic growth.

The first written record of Lodzia (the original name of the city), in which the village is granted to the bishop of Wroclaw, dates back from 1332. However, a crucial moment in the history of Lodz was granting the city charter by King Wladislaw Jagiello in 1423. Originally, Lodz was an agricultural town with wooden architecture with no fortifications or town walls. The main activity of Lodz inhabitants was still farming. At the end of the 14th century a parish church and a town hall were built at the market square. In the prosperity period in the 16th century the population of Lodz was only about 700 people. For a few centuries Lodz had hardly developed. The 17th century was a hard period for Lodz.. The Swedish invasion, fires and epidemics contributed to the decrease in the town population. In 1793 Lodz became under the Prussian rule. Being part of the estates of the Bishop of Wroclaw, it was secularized and taken over by the state authorities. The situation changed dramatically in 1815 when upon the Vienna Congress Treaty Lodz became incorporated into the Polish Kingdom and was under the Russian rule. It was then that developing strong and modern economy in Poland became the state's priority.

Archaeological findings indicate settlement on the site as early as the Stone Age, several thousand years ago. Wrocław originated in the 10th century CE at the crossroads of the amber trade route between the Roman Empire and the Baltic Sea and the trade route linking the Black Sea to western Europe; it was administered by the Polish Piast kings. In 1000 King Bolesław I (the Brave) fortified the place and established a bishopric on Ostrów Tumski (“Cathedral Island”). In 1109 a major attack by German forces was repelled at nearby Psie Pole. In 1138 Wrocław became the first capital of all Silesia under the rule of the Piast prince Władysław II (the Exile). Much of the city south of the Oder River was devastated during the Mongol invasion in 1241. At the invitation of Silesian authorities in the 13th century, many Germans migrated to Wrocław. The city received self-governing rights in 1261, when it adopted the Magdeburg Law (Magdeburger Recht), a civic constitution based on German law. Wrocław again flourished as an economic centre. Nearby to the east a “new town” was developed; it was united with the older city in 1327. In 1335 Wrocław passed to Bohemia with the rest of Silesia, and in 1526 it passed to the Habsburgs. In 1741 the city, which had for centuries had a large German population, fell to Prussia under the rule of Frederick II (the Great) and eventually became part of Germany.