Chorzów (/ˈxɒʒuːf/ KHOZH-oof; Polish: [ˈxɔʐuf] ⓘ; German: Königshütte [ˈkøːnɪçsˌhʏtə] ⓘ; Silesian: Chorzōw) is a city in the Silesia region of southern Poland, near Katowice.

Chorzów is believed to be first mentioned as Zversov or Zuersov in a document of 1136 by Pope Innocent II as a village with peasants, silver miners, and two inns.

The a in the early names may have been later modified to the current pronunciation with o perhaps due to similarity to the common adjective chory=ill and a presence of a hospital (which was moved in 1299 to Rozbark at the gates of Bytom).

[3] In the 12th century, the castellany of Bytom, including the Chorzów area, belonged to the Seniorate Province (Kraków Duchy) of Poland.

[citation needed] From 1327, the Upper Silesian duchies were ruled by the dukes of the Piast dynasty and were subject to Bohemian overlordship.

[citation needed] With the discovery of bituminous coal deposits at the end of the 18th century by the Polish local priest Ludwik Bojarski, new industrial sectors developed in the Chorzów area.

In the years 1791–1797 the Prussian state-owned Royal Coal Mine was constructed (Kopalnia Król, Königsgrube, later renamed several times with the changing political winds).

In 1846 Królewska Huta received a railway track to Świętochłowice and Mysłowice, in 1857 to Bytom and until 1872 to all major cities in the Silesian region.

Królewska Huta received city status in 1868 as part of Bytom County, and in 1898 it was made a separate city-county.

Karol Miarka was the editor of Polish books and newspapers including Katolik (The Catholic) published in Królewska Huta since 1868, Poradnik Gospodarski (Economic Advisor) since 1879.

In part due to the German-Polish trade war in the 1920s, the industry of Chorzów, a border city at that time, stagnated until 1933.

In 1927, a division of Huta Piłsudski was separated into a company making rail cars, trams and bridges; today it operates as Alstom-Konstal.

The State Factory of Nitrogen Compounds (Państwowa Fabryka Związków Azotowych) was in 1933 merged with a similar company (largely its copy) in Tarnów-Mościce.

[9] Polish property was confiscated, and Chorzów was promptly re-incorporated into German Silesia; the Upper Silesian industry being one of the pillars of the Nazi Germany war effort.

In 1939 and 1940, the Germans carried out mass arrests of Polish intelligentsia, especially teachers, for which a prison was operated in the city (see Intelligenzaktion).

[10] Local Polish teachers were among Poles murdered in 1939 in Chorzów and Strzybnica (present-day district of Tarnowskie Góry), and later in the Dachau concentration camp.

[16] In January 1945, the prisoners of the subcamp of Auschwitz were evacuated on foot to Gliwice, and then deported to the Nordhausen-Dora concentration camp.

[16] Chorzów was occupied by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945 with the subsequent persecution of many ethnic Polish Silesians and Germans.

Generally, the Chorzów industry suffered little damage during World War II due to its inaccessibility to Allied bombing, a Soviet Army enveloping manoeuvre in January 1945,[18] and perhaps Albert Speer's slowness or refusal to implement the scorched earth policy.

Six European capitals are located within 600 km (373 mi): Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Warsaw.

Many heavy-industry establishments were closed or scaled down in the last two decades because of environmental issues in the center of a highly urbanized area, and also because of decades-long lack of investment.

Kamila Skolimowska Memorial, which was part of the inaugural meeting World Athletics Continental Tour in 2020 and Diamond League series since 2022.

Throughout its history it has featured such artists and groups as The Rolling Stones, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, U2, Iron Maiden, Linkin Park, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Genesis and The Police.