Facts.
Located on the Vistula River in the lesser Poland region the Southern Polish city Krakow is one of the largest as well as oldest cities of the country. It used to be the national capital from 1038 to 1596.
Warsaw may now be the administrative capital of Poland but due to its considerable scientific, cultural and artistic life Krakow, with a population exceeding 750 000 people, is often referred to as the cultural capital of the country. Numerous theatres, museums (28!), festivals and other cultural events prove it.
Krakow is a city rich in history: Polish kings were crowned and buried at the 11th-century Wawel Castle. Nowadays Wawel Castle offers permanent exhibitions as well as a conference centre. The film Schindler’s List (1993) has revived the interest in Kasimierz, a historical district best known for being home to a Jewish community until World War II. After most Jews were deported during the war and Kasimierz experienced a decline it is now filled with Jewish culture again also thanks to the Jewish Culture Festival that originated in 1988. Krakow survived the First and Second World War without any major bombings. Therefore the city centre, including the Old Town, Kasimierz and the Wawel Castle, remained relatively undamaged and was finally added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1978.
Krakow is one of the major centres of education in Poland. It hosts 11 universities with approximately 10 000 employees and 51 000 students as well as a variety of further academy-level institutions. Altogether the city counts 160 000 students. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the second oldest university in Central Europe after Prague is located in Krakow. The “Uniwersytet Jagielloński” was founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great as “Akademia Krakowska” and was not called university until 1817.
The city of Krakow belongs to one of the economically most successful cities in Poland. Reasons for this are primarily the central location of the city with around eight million people living within a radius of 100 km but also the fact that the people are young and well-trained. 60% of Krakow’s inhabitants are younger than 45 years compared to the rest of Poland with 46%. Many multinational companies have settled in Krakow such as Google, IBM, Volvo, Phillip Morris or Motorola as well as foreign chains like Metro, Carrefour or Ikea. Tourism is another important factor in Krakow’s economy. More than five million tourists visit the city each year. The low cost flights to Western Europe especially increase the number of British and Irish visitors.