[13] Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its left-bank tributary, the Brda, the strategic location of Bydgoszcz has made it an inland port and a vital centre for trade and transportation.

Bydgoszcz is an architecturally rich city, with gothic, neo-gothic, neo-baroque, neoclassicist, modernist and Art Nouveau styles present, for which, combined with extensive green spaces, it has earned the nickname Little Berlin.

In ancient times, there was a development of settlements related to lively trade contacts with the Roman Empire, as a convenient location of today's Bydgoszcz laid on the Amber Road heading northwest to the Baltic coastline avoiding crossing the Vistula river.

[19][20][21] During the early Slavic period a fishing settlement called Bydgoszcza ("Bydgostia" in Latin) became a stronghold on the Vistula trade routes.

[23] The king granted a number of privileges, regarding river trade on the Brda and Vistula and the right to mint coins, and ordered the construction of the castle, which became the seat of the castellan.

[citation needed] After 1370, Bydgoszcz castle was the favourite residence of the grandson of the king and his would-be successor Duke Casimir IV, who died there in 1377.

[24] In 1621, on the occasion of the Polish victory over the Ottoman Empire at Chocim, one of the most valuable and largest coins in the history of Europe was minted in Bydgoszcz – 100 ducats of Sigismund III Vasa.

[22][better source needed] During the year of 1629, shortly before the end of the Polish-Swedish War of 1626–29, the town was conquered by Swedish troops led by king Gustav II Adolph of Sweden personally.

[22][better source needed] In 1766 royal cartographer Franciszek Florian Czaki, during a meeting of the Committee of the Crown Treasury in Warsaw, proposed a plan of building a canal, which would connect the Vistula via the Brda with the Noteć river.

Józef Wybicki, Polish jurist and political activist best known as the author of the lyrics of the national anthem of Poland, worked at the Crown Tribunal in Bydgoszcz.

[29] Under Frederick the Great the town revived, notably with the construction of a canal from Bromberg to Nakel (Nakło) which connected the north-flowing Vistula River via the Brda to the west-flowing Noteć, which in turn flowed to the Oder via the Warta.

[4] During the Kościuszko Uprising, in 1794 the city was briefly recaptured by Poles, commanded by General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski,[24] and the local Polish administration was co-organized by Józef Wybicki.

With Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Nations in 1813, the town was re-annexed by Prussia as part of the Grand Duchy of Posen (Poznań), becoming the capital of the Bromberg Region.

During the November Uprising, a Polish insurgent organization was active in the city and local Poles helped smuggle volunteers, weapons and ammunition to the Russian Partition of Poland.

During the withdrawal of Poles, as part of the diversion planned by Germany, local Germans opened fire on Polish soldiers and civilians.

The event, referred to as the Bloody Sunday by the propaganda of Nazi Germany, which exaggerated the number of victims to 5,000 "defenceless" Germans, was used as an excuse to carry out dozens of mass executions of Polish residents in the Old Market Square and in the Valley of Death.

[44] The victims were both men and women, including activists, school principals, teachers, priests, local officials, merchants, lawyers, and also boy and girl scouts, gymnasium students and children as young as 12.

[45] The executions were presented as punishment for supposedly "murdering Germans" and "destroying peace", and were used by Nazi propaganda to show the world that it was alleged "Polish terror" that forced Hitler to start the war.

[44] On the Polish National Independence Day, November 11, 1939, the Germans symbolically publicly executed Leon Barciszewski, the mayor of Bydgoszcz.

[46] The city was annexed to the newly formed province of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia as the seat of the district or county (kreis) of Bromberg.

Those German residents who had survived were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and the city was returned to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s.

In 1973, the former town of Fordon, located on the left bank of the Vistula, was included in the city limits[48] and became the easternmost district of Bydgoszcz.

It is a three-aisle late Gothic church, erected between 1466 and 1502, which boasts a late-Gothic painting entitled Madonna with a Rose or the Holy Virgin of Beautiful Love from the 16th century.

However, it is the water, footbridges, historic red-brick tenement houses reflected in the rivers, and the greenery, including old chestnut trees, that create the unique atmosphere of the island.

Built at the turn of the 19th century, they were originally used to store grain and similar products, but now house exhibitions of the city's Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum.

In 2004, Bydgoszcz launched an Industrial and Technology Park of 283 hectares, an attractive place for doing business as companies that relocate there receive tax breaks, 24-hour security, access to large plots of land and to the media, the railway line Chorzów Batory – Tczew (passenger, coal), the DK5 and DK10 national roads, and future freeways S10 and S5.

Numerous orchestras and choirs, both German (Gesangverein, Liedertafel) and Polish (St. Wojciech Halka, Moniuszko), have also made the city their home.

The concert hall, which can hold 920 people is classified, in terms of sound, as one of the best in Europe, which is confirmed by well-known artists and critics (including Jerzy Waldorff).

Bydgoszcz's stage has been frequented by many global celebrities, including Arthur Rubinstein, Benjamin Britten, Witold Małcużyński, Luciano Pavarotti, Shlomo Mintz, Mischa Maisky, Kevin Kenner, Kurt Masur, Kazimierz Kord, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Antoni Wit.

[68] It is said that Pan Twardowski spent some time in the city of Bydgoszcz, where, in his memory, a figure was recently mounted in a window of a tenement, overseeing the Old Town.