Kraków

Kraków is a city in Poland. It sits beside a wide river called the Vistula.

Only one city in Poland has more people. That city is Warsaw.

Kraków is a city in southern Poland, on the Vistula River. It is the capital of the province of Lesser Poland.

Poland's statistics office estimated 816,614 people in Kraków at the end of 2025, up from 800,653 in the 2021 census. Only Warsaw, the capital, has more people.

City Population's tables from Statistics Poland give Kraków 744,032 people at the end of 1992, 758,544 in the 2002 census, 800,653 in the 2021 census and 816,614 in the estimate for 31 December 2025, on 326.85 km². Warsaw (1,866,729) is the only larger city; Wrocław (672,601) is third.

Universalis places the old town on the rocky Wawel rise above the Vistula, at a crossroads where the river winds between the foothills near Wieliczka and the end of the Kraków Jura uplands.

A castle with red roofs stands on Wawel Hill. Long ago, Poland's kings lived there.

In the old town is a very big market square.

Wawel Hill rises beside the Vistula. On it stand the royal castle and the cathedral where Poland's kings were buried. UNESCO calls the hill the dominant feature of Kraków's historic center.

North of the hill lies the medieval town, with what UNESCO describes as Europe's largest market square, and in the southern part of town lies Kazimierz, an old district with ancient synagogues. Together they were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1978.

UNESCO's World Heritage listing (inscribed 1978, boundary modified 2010, 149.65 ha) joins three ensembles: the medieval chartered city, the Wawel Hill complex and the town of Kazimierz with Stradom (chartered in 1335). Wawel Hill, a former royal residence and burial place, carries the castle and the cathedral that symbolize the seats of royal and bishops' power.

UNESCO describes 'Europe's largest market square', the remains of 14th-century fortifications, many churches, palaces and townhouses, and Kazimierz, shaped by both Catholic and Jewish cultures. Universalis counts thirty convents and fifty-eight old churches in the city.

Students come to Kraków to learn at its old university.

The city also has factories, and lots of visitors come to see its old buildings.

UNESCO calls the Jagiellonian University one of the oldest universities of international renown, and Universalis says that from the 1300s to the 1600s it was one of the main centers of learning in eastern Europe. Its oldest college, the Collegium Maius, is now a museum.

Kraków is also a city of industry. A large steelworks was built beside it at Nowa Huta, and Universalis describes a city making machines, electrical goods and medicines. It is a big center for tourists, too.

Universalis describes Kraków as 'the most famous of Polish cities' and, with its industrial satellite town of Nowa Huta, home of the first large steelworks of postwar Poland, a dynamic industrial city making machinery, electrical goods and pharmaceuticals, without losing the cultural and artistic roles behind its fame. It calls the city a major tourist center in the Tatra region.

UNESCO notes that Kraków was one of the largest administrative and commercial centers of central Europe, where arts and crafts flourished and the cultures of East and West mixed.