Poznań (Polish: [ˈpɔznaj̃] or [ˈpɔznaɲ] ; German: Posen [ˈpoːzn̩] ; Latin: Posnania) is a city on the River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center with customs such as Saint John's Fair (Jarmark Świętojański), traditional Saint Martin's croissants, and a local dialect. Among its most important heritage sites are the Renaissance Old Town, Town Hall and Poznań Cathedral.
Poznań is the fifth-largest city in Poland. As of 2023, the city's population is 540,146, while the Poznań metropolitan area (Metropolia Poznań) comprising Poznań County and several other communities is inhabited by over 1.029 million people. It is one of four historical capitals of medieval Poland and the ancient capital of the Greater Poland region, currently the administrative capital of the province called Greater Poland Voivodeship.
Poznań is a center of trade, sports, education, technology and tourism. It is an important academic site, with about 130,000 students and Adam Mickiewicz University, the third largest Polish university. The city serves as the seat of the oldest Polish diocese, now being one of the most populous Catholic archdioceses in the country. The city also hosts the Poznań International Fair, the biggest industrial fair in Poland and one of the largest in Europe. The city's other renowned landmarks include the National Museum, Grand Theatre, Fara Church and the Imperial Castle.
Poznań is classified as a Gamma− global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. According to several rankings it is one of the most business-friendly cities in Poland. It also ranks highly in safety and healthcare quality. The city of Poznań has also, many times, won the prize awarded by "Superbrands" for a very high quality city brand. In 2012, Poznań's Art and Business Centre "Stary Browar" won a competition organised by National Geographic Traveler and was given the first prize as one of the seven "New Polish Wonders". Companies headquartered in the city include energy provider Enea, e-commerce company Allegro and convenience store chain Żabka.
The official patron saints of Poznań are Saint Peter and Paul of Tarsus, the patrons of the cathedral. Martin of Tours – the patron of the main street Święty Marcin – is also regarded as one of the patron saints of the city.
The name Poznań likely derives from the Polish verb poznać, meaning "to meet" or "to know," designating the area as a meeting place. The earliest known references to Poznań are found in the chronicles of Thietmar of Merseburg: episcopus Posnaniensis ("bishop of Poznań", in 970) and ab urbe Posnani ("from the city of Poznań", in 1005). The city's name is documented in the Latin nominative case as Posnania in 1236, and as Poznania in 1247. The phrase in Poznan appears in 1146 and 1244.
The city's full official name is Stołeczne Miasto Poznań (The Capital City of Poznań), owing to its role as a centre of political power in the early Polish state under the Piast dynasty. In German, Poznań is known as Posen; it was officially named Haupt- und Residenzstadt Posen (Capital and Residence City of Posen) between 20 August 1910 and 28 November 1918. Among the Latin names used in historical records are Posnania and Civitas Posnaniensis. Its Yiddish name is פּױזן (Poyzn).
For centuries before the Christianization of Poland (an event that essentially is credited as the creation of the very first Polish state, the Duchy of Poland), Poznań was an important cultural and political centre of the Western Polans. It consisted of a fortified stronghold between the Warta and Cybina rivers on what is now Ostrów Tumski. Mieszko I, the first historically recorded ruler of the West Polans and of the early Polish state which they dominated, built one of his main gords in Poznań. Mieszko's baptism in AD 966, seen as a defining moment in the Christianization of the Polish state, may have taken place in Poznań.
Following the baptism, construction began of Poznań's cathedral, the first in Poland. Poznań was the main seat of the first missionary bishop sent to Poland, Bishop Jordan. The Congress of Gniezno in 1000 led to the country's first permanent archbishopric being established in Gniezno (which is generally regarded as Poland's capital in that period), although Poznań continued to have independent bishops of its own. Poznań's cathedral was the place of burial of the early Piast monarchs, among them Mieszko I, Bolesław I the Brave, Mieszko II Lambert, Casimir I, and later of Przemysł I and Przemysł II.
The pagan reaction that followed Mieszko II's death (probably in Poznań) in 1034 left the region weak, and in 1038, Duke Bretislaus I of Bohemia sacked and destroyed both Poznań and Gniezno. Poland was reunited under Casimir I the Restorer in 1039, but the capital was moved to Kraków, which had been relatively unaffected by the troubles. In 1138, by the testament of Boleslaus III, Poland was divided into separate duchies under the late king's sons, and Poznań and its surroundings became the domain of Mieszko III the Old, the first of the Dukes of Greater Poland. This period of fragmentation lasted until 1320. Duchies frequently changed hands; control of Poznań, Gniezno and Kalisz sometimes lay with a single duke, but at other times these constituted separate duchies.
In about 1249, Duke Przemysł I began constructing what would become the Royal Castle on a hill on the left bank of the Warta. Then in 1253, Przemysł issued a charter to Thomas of Gubin for the founding of a town under Magdeburg law, between the castle and the river. Thomas brought a large number of German settlers to aid in the building and settlement of the city – this is an example of the German eastern migration (Ostsiedlung) characteristic of that period. The city, which covered the area of today's Old Town neighbourhood, was surrounded by a defensive wall, integrated with the castle. The royal chancery and the university ensured a first flourishing of Polish literary culture in the city.
In reunited Poland, and later in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poznań was the seat of a voivodeship. The city's importance began to grow in the Jagiellonian period, due to its position on trading routes from Lithuania and Ruthenia to western Europe. It would become a major centre for the fur trade by the late 16th century. Suburban settlements developed around the city walls, on the river islands, and on the right bank, with some (Ostrów Tumski, Śródka, Chwaliszewo, Ostrówek) obtaining their own town charters. However, the city's development was hampered by regular major fires and floods. On 2 May 1536 a fire destroyed 175 buildings, including the castle, the town hall, the monastery, and the suburban settlement called St. Martin. In 1519, the Lubrański Academy had been established in Poznań as an institution of higher education, but without the right to award degrees, which was reserved to Kraków's Jagiellonian University. However, the Jesuits' college, founded in the city in 1571 during the Counter-Reformation, had the right to award degrees from 1611 until 1773, when it was combined with the academy.
In the second half of the 17th century and most of the 18th, Poznań was severely affected by a series of wars, attendant military occupations, lootings and destruction – the Second and Third Northern Wars, the War of the Polish Succession, the Seven Years' War and the Bar Confederation. During the Deluge, Poznań's Jewish community was accused of collaborating with the invading Swedish enemy, and as a result suffered pogroms carried out by both the city's non-Jewish residents and units of the Polish Crown Army.
It was also hit by frequent outbreaks of plague, and by floods, particularly that of 1736, which destroyed most of the suburban buildings. The population of the conurbation declined from 20,000 around 1600 to 6,000 around 1730, and Bambergian and Dutch settlers (Bambers and Olęders) were brought in to rebuild the devastated suburbs. In 1778, a "Committee of Good Order" (Komisja Dobrego Porządku) was established in the city, which oversaw rebuilding efforts and reorganized the city's administration. However, in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland, Poznań came under the control of the Kingdom of Prussia, becoming part of (and initially the seat of) the province of South Prussia.