Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa [varˈʂava] ) is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly 370 kilometers (230 mi) from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2007 was estimated at 1,706,624, with a metropolitan area of approximately 3,350,000.The city area is 516.9 square kilometers (199.6 sq mi), with an agglomeration of 6,100.43 square kilometers (2,355.4 sq mi) (Warsaw Metro Area – Obszar Metropolitalny Warszawy). Warsaw is the 8th largest city in the European Union.

Warszawianka (1831) (French: La Varsovienne) is widely considered the unofficial anthem of the Capital City of Warsaw. On November 9, 1940 the City of Warsaw was awarded with the highest military decoration for courage in the face of the enemy - Order Virtuti Militari for the heroic defence in 1939

Warsaw is also known as the "phoenix city", as it was completely destroyed during World War II, and rebuilt with the herioc effort of Polish citizens. Warsaw has given its name to the Warsaw Pact, Warsaw Convention, Treaty of Warsaw and the Warsaw Uprising.

Early history

The first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw were Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century). After Jazdów was raided, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa. The Płock prince Bolesław II of Masovia, established this settlement, the modern Warsaw, about 1300. The first historical document attesting to the existence of a Warsaw castellan dates to 1313. Fuller information about the age of the city is contained in the court case against the Teutonic Knights which took place in Warsaw cathedral in 1339. In the beginning of the 14th century it became one of the seats of the Dukes of Masovia, becoming the capital of Masovia in 1413. Fourteenth-century Warsaw's economy rested on crafts and trade. The townsmen, of uniform nationality at the time, were marked by a great disparity in their financial status. At the top were the rich patricians while the plebeians formed the lower strata. Upon the extinction of the local ducal line, the duchy was reincorporated into the Polish Crown in 1526.

16th to 18th century

This differentiation and the growing social contrasts resulted in 1525 in the first revolt of the poor of Warsaw against the rich and the authority they exercised. As a result of this struggle the so-called third order was admitted to the city authorities and shared power with the bodies formed by the patricians: the council and the assessors. The story of Warsaw populace's struggle for social liberation dates from that first demonstration in 1525.

In 1529, Warsaw for the first time became the seat of the General Sejm, permanent since 1569. In 1573 Warsaw gave its name to the Warsaw Confederation, formally establishing religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Due to its central location between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's capitals of Kraków and Vilnius, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and at the same time of the Polish Crown in 1596, when King Sigismund III Vasa moved the court from Kraków. At the time of the transformation of Warsaw from one of the main Polish towns into the country's capital, it already numbered some 14,000 inhabitants. The old walled city had 169 houses; the new Warsaw outside the walls numbered 204 houses, while the suburbs had as many as 320.

In the following years the town expanded towards the suburbs. Several private independent districts were established, the property of aristocrats and the gentry, which were ruled by their own laws. They were settled by craftsmen and tradesmen. The peak of their development came in the wake of Warsaw's revival after the Swedish invasion which had seriously ravaged the city. Three times between 1655-1658 the city was under siege and three times it was taken and pillaged by the Swedish, Brandenburgian and Transylvanian forces. The mid-17th century architecture of the Old and New Towns survived until Nazi invasion. The style was late Renaissance with Gothic ground floors preserved from the fire of 1607. In the 17th and early part of the 18th century, during the rule of the great nobles oligarchy, magnificent Baroque residences rose all around Warsaw.

In 1700, the Great Northern War broke out. The city was besieged several times. In 1702 Warsaw was captured by the Swedish troops under King Charles XII. The city suffered severely from the Swedish occupation. On September 1, 1704 Warsaw was retaken by Saxon Army of Augustus the Strong after five days of a severe artillery bombardment. In 1704, after the escape of Augustus, the Swedes installed Stanisław Leszczyński on Polish throne. It compelled Augustus to introduce Poland to war alongside with Russia (alliance was concluded in Narva summer 1704). On 21 October 1705 Saxon-Russian army laid siege to the city. In 1707, by virtue of the peace treaty between Augustus II and Charles XII, Russian allied troops entered Warsaw. After two months, Russian forces were removed from Warsaw. Several times during that war the city was obliged to pay heavy contributions.

The second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th century marked a new and characteristic stage in the development of the city.Warsaw turned into an early-capitalistic principal city. The growth of political activity, development of progressive ideas, political and economic changes – all this exercised an impact on the formation of the city whose architecture began to reflect the contemporary aspirations and trends.

The composition of the Warsaw population altered during the Enlightenment. Factories developed, the number of workers increased, the class of merchants, industrialists and financiers expanded. At the same time there was a strong migration of peasants from the rural areas. In 1792, Warsaw had 115,000 inhabitants as compared with 24,000 in 1754. These changes brought about the development of the building trade. New noblemen's residences were put up, the middle class built its own houses which showed a marked social differentiation. The residences of the representatives of the wealthiest stratum – the big merchants and bankers – matched those of the magnates. A new type of city dwellings developed, catering to the needs and tastes of the bourgeoisie. The artistic medium for all these buildings was that of antiquity, which, although its different social origin was not analyzed at the time, expressed the progressive ideas of the Enlightenment.

19th to 20th century

Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of South Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1806, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the center of the Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with Imperial Russia. The Royal University of Warsaw was established in 1816.

Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians, the 1830 November Uprising broke out. However, the Polish-Russian war of 1831 ended in the uprising's defeat and in the curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy. On 27 February 1861 a Warsaw crowd protesting the Russian rule over Poland was fired upon by the Russian troops. Five people were killed. The Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during January Uprising in 1863–4.

Warsaw flourished in the late nineteenth century under Mayor Sokrates Starynkiewicz (1875–92), a Russian-born general appointed by Tsar Alexander III. Under Starynkiewicz Warsaw saw its first water and sewer systems designed and built by the English engineer William Lindley and his son, William Heerlein Lindley, as well as the expansion and modernization of trams, street lighting and gas works.

Warsaw became the capital of the newly-independent Poland in 1918. In the course of the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, the huge Battle of Warsaw was fought on the Eastern outskirts of the city in which the capital was successfully defended and the Red Army defeated. Poland stopped on itself the full brunt of the Red Army and defeated an idea of the "export of the revolution."

World War II

During the Second World War, central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a Nazi colonial administration. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish population – several hundred thousand, some 30% of the city – herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. When the order came to annihilate the Ghetto as part of Hitler's "Final Solution" on April 19, 1943, Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month. When the fighting ended, almost all survivors were massacred, only few managed to escape or hide.

By July 1944, the Red Army was deep into Polish territory and pursuing the Germans toward Warsaw. Knowing that Stalin was hostile to the idea of an independent Poland, the Polish government-in-exile in London gave orders to the underground Home Army (AK) to try to seize the control of Warsaw from the Germans before the Red Army arrived. Thus, on 1 August 1944, as the Red Army was nearing the city, the Warsaw Uprising began. The armed struggle, planned to last 48 hours, went on for 63 days. Eventually the Home Army fighters and civilians assisting them were forced to capitulate. They were transported to the PoW camps in Germany, while the entire civilian population was expelled.

The Nazis then essentially demolished Warsaw. Hitler, ignoring the agreed terms of the capitulation, ordered the entire city to be razed to the ground and the library and museum collections taken to Germany or burned. Monuments and government buildings were blown up by special German troops known as Verbrennungs und Vernichtungskommando ("Burning and Destruction Detachments"). About 85% of the city had been destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle.

On January 17, 1945 - after the beginning of the Vistula–Oder Offensive of the Red Army - Soviet troops entered the ruins of the city of Warsaw, and liberated Warsaw's suburbs from German occupation. The city was swiftly taken by the Soviet Army, which rapidly advanced towards Łódź, as German forces regrouped at a more westward position.

Modern times

In 1945, after the bombing, the revolts, the fighting, and the demolition had ended, most of Warsaw lay in ruins. Next to the remnants of Gothic architecture the ruins of splendid edifices from the time of Congress Poland and ferroconcrete relics of prewar building jutted out of the rubble.

After the war, under a Communist regime set up by the conquering Soviets, large prefabricated housing projects were erected in Warsaw to address the housing shortage, along with other typical buildings of an Eastern Bloc city, such as the Palace of Culture and Science. The city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country's centre of political and economic life. Many of the historic streets, buildings, and churches were restored to their original form. In 1980, Warsaw's historic Old Town was inscribed onto UNESCO's World Heritage list.

John Paul II's visits to his native country in 1979 and 1983 brought support to the budding solidarity movement and encouraged the growing anti-communist fervor there. In 1979, less than a year after becoming pope, John Paul celebrated Mass in Victory Square in Warsaw and ended his sermon with a call to "renew the face" of Poland: Let Thy Spirit descend! Let Thy Spirit descend and renew the face of the land! This land These words were very meaningful for the Polish citizens who understood them as the incentive for the democratic changes.

In 1995, the Warsaw Metro opened. With the entry of Poland into the European Union in 2004, Warsaw is currently experiencing the biggest economic boom of its history. The opening match of UEFA Euro 2012 is scheduled to take place in Warsaw.

Although today's Warsaw is a fairly young city, it has many tourist attractions. Apart from the Warsaw Old Town quarter, carefully reconstructed after World War II, each borough has something to offer. Among the most notable landmarks of the Old Town are the Royal Castle, King Sigismund's Column, Market Square, and the Barbican.

Further south is the so-called Royal Route, with many classicist palaces, the Presidential Palace and the Warsaw University campus. Also the popular Nowy Świat Street is worth mentioning. Wilanów Palace, the former royal residence of King John III Sobieski, is notable for its baroque architecture and beautiful parks.

Warsaw's oldest public park, the Saxon Garden, is located within 10 minutes' walk from the old town. Warsaw's biggest public park and said to be the most beautiful is the Royal Baths Park. It is also very old – established in the 17th century and given its current classical shape in late 18th century – is located further south, on the Royal Route, about 3 km (1.9 mi) from the Warsaw Old Town.

The Powązki Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Europe, full of sculptures, some of them by the most renowned Polish artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Since it serves the religious communities of Warsaw, be it Catholics, Jews, Muslims or Protestants, it is often called a necropolis. Nearby is the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe.

There are many places in Warsaw where Jewish culture resonates down through time. Nożyk Synagogue, the picturesque Próżna Street, the Jewish theater are only the beginning of a walk in the traces of Warsaw Judaica. There are also many places commemorating the tragic pages of Warsaw’s history such as the Umschlagplatz, the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, and a section of the Ghetto wall on Sienna Street.

Examples of the heroic history of Warsaw can be found in all parts of the city. The Warsaw Citadel, one of the architectural attractions of the city, is an impressive 19th century fortification and one of the best preserved examples of defensive architecture in Poland. The statue of Little Insurgent located at the ramparts of the Old Town commemorates the children who served as messengers and frontline troops in the Warsaw Uprising. Pawiak an infamous German Gestapo prison is now occupied by a Mausoleum of Memory of Martyrdom and the museum.

The borough of Żoliborz is famous for its architecture from the 1920s and 1930s. Ulica Kubusia Puchatka, probably the only street in the world named after Winnie-the-Pooh and located in the very centre of a metropolis.

In Warsaw there are many places connected with the life and work of Fryderyk Chopin. The heart of Polish-born composer is sealed inside Warsaw's Holy Cross Church.During the summer time the Chopin Monument in the Royal Baths Park is a place where pianists give a concerts to the park audience.

Also many references to Marie Curie, her work and her family can be found in Warsaw: Marie's birthplace at the Warsaw New Town, the working places where she did her first scientific works and the Radium Institute at Wawelska Street for the research and the treatment of cancer which she founded in 1925 (during the Warsaw Uprising a scene of crimes committed by Nazi soldiers belonging to Vlasov’s detachment on the patients and members of the staff of the Radium Institute Hospital).

Completely different is the area around the Central Railway Station (Dworzec Centralny) which is the best example of Warsaw's contrasts. The Palace of Culture and Science, the greatest masterpiece of Stalinist architecture, is surrounded by gleaming sky-scrapers, sophisticated shopping malls and hotels.

There are also many tourist sites around Warsaw including beautiful Polish nobles manor houses, medieval castles, folcloric sites of Polish culture and historic places. Around the city county many medieval monuments can be found including Romanesque church and monastery in Czerwińsk (1129-1156) 52 km (32 mi) west of Warsaw, and Czersk castle (1388-1410) a fabulous medium-sized ruined castle sitting atop an escarpment about 33 km (21 mi) from Warsaw. Bieliński Palace in Otwock Wielki (1682-1689), 25 km (16 mi) from Warsaw city center, houses the Museum of Interiors while palace in Jabłonna, 18 km (11 mi) north of Warsaw, is a part of an 18th century elegant palace-and-park complex. Żelazowa Wola about 60 km (37 mi) west of Warsaw is the birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin. A museum devoted to Chopin is located in the preserved annex of the former 19th century manor of the Chopin family. A 19th century health spa in Konstancin-Jeziorna is located about 20 km (12 mi) south of Warsaw.