[9] Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 (2023), with approximately 8 million additional people living within a 100 km (62 mi) radius.

[13] In 1038, it became the seat of Polish monarchs from the Piast dynasty, and subsequently served as the centre of administration under Jagiellonian kings and of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until the late 16th century, when Sigismund III transferred his royal court to Warsaw.

The first written record of the city's name dates back to 965, when Kraków was described as a notable commercial centre controlled first by Moravia (876–879), but captured by a Bohemian duke Boleslaus I in 955.

[34] It was rebuilt practically identically,[35] based on new location act and incorporated in 1257 by the high duke Bolesław V the Chaste who following the example of Wrocław, introduced city rights modelled on the Magdeburg law allowing for tax benefits and new trade privileges for the citizens.

As the capital of the Kingdom of Poland and a member of the Hanseatic League, the city attracted many craftsmen from abroad,[41] businesses, and guilds as science and the arts began to flourish.

In 1794, Tadeusz Kościuszko initiated an unsuccessful insurrection in the town's Main Square which, in spite of his victorious Battle of Racławice against a numerically superior Russian army, resulted in the third and final partition of Poland.

They were opposed to the conservative landed aristocracy who also were drawn more and more to the city real estates even though their income still mainly came from their agricultural possessions in the Republic, the Kingdom of Poland and Galicia.

For those who remained, the German authorities decided in March 1941 to allocate a then-suburban neighborhood, Podgórze District, to become Kraków's ghetto, where many Jews subsequently died of illness or starvation.

Although looted by occupational authorities, Kraków remained relatively undamaged at the end of World War II,[89] with most of the city's historical and architectural legacy spared.

Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev entered the city on 18 January 1945, and began arresting Poles loyal to the Polish government-in-exile or those who had served in the Home Army.

[93] In an effort that spanned two decades, Karol Wojtyła, the cardinal archbishop of Kraków from 1964 to 1978, successfully lobbied for permission to build the first churches in the newly industrialized suburbs.

This natural barrier used to separate Kazimierz from the Old Town for several centuries, while the bridge connected Kraków to the Wieliczka Salt Mine and the lucrative Hungarian trade route.

It was also at around that time that Kraków's first radial boulevards began to appear, with the city undergoing a large-scale program aimed at transforming the ancient Polish capital into a sophisticated regional centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This form of architecture was implemented in the new industrial district of Nowa Huta with apartment blocks constructed according to a Stalinist blueprint, with repetitious courtyards and wide, tree-lined avenues.

[138] After the Revolutions of 1989 and the birth of the Third Republic in the latter half of the 20th century,[139] a number of new architectural projects were completed, including the construction of large business parks and commercial facilities such as the Galeria Krakowska, or infrastructure investments like the Kraków Fast Tram.

Established between 1822 and 1830 in place of the old city walls, it forms a green belt around the Old Town and consists of a chain of smaller gardens designed in various styles and adorned with monuments.

[144] Built on the banks of the Rudawa, the park was equipped with running and exercise tracks, playgrounds, a swimming pool, amphitheatre, pavilions, and a pond for boat rowing and water bicycles.

[145] The less prominent Park Krakowski, founded in 1885 by Stanisław Rehman, was a popular destination point for Cracovians at the end of the 19th century, but has since been greatly reduced in size because of rapid real estate development.

Major districts added in the 19th and 20th centuries include Podgórze—until 1915, a separate town on the southern bank of the Vistula—and Nowa Huta, to the east of the city centre, which was built after World War II.

Kraków's palaces, churches, theatres and mansions display a great variety of color, architectural details, stained glass, paintings, sculptures, and furnishings.

The districts were each assigned a Roman numeral as well as a name:[168] Stare Miasto (I), Grzegórzki (II), Prądnik Czerwony (III), Prądnik Biały (IV), Krowodrza (V), Bronowice (VI), Zwierzyniec (VII), Dębniki (VIII), Łagiewniki-Borek Fałęcki (IX), Swoszowice (X), Podgórze Duchackie (XI), Bieżanów-Prokocim (XII), Podgórze (XIII), Czyżyny (XIV), Mistrzejowice (XV), Bieńczyce (XVI), Wzgórza Krzesławickie (XVII), and Nowa Huta (XVIII).

There are about 50 large multinational companies in the city, including Google, Uber, IBM, Shell, UBS, HSBC, Motorola, Aptiv, MAN, General Electric, ABB, Aon, Akamai, Cisco, Hitachi, Altria, Capgemini,[171] and Sabre Holdings,[172] along with other British, German and Scandinavian-based firms.

[187] In Autumn 2016 Poland's oldest Bicycle-sharing system was modernized and now offers 1,500 bikes at 169 stations under the name of Wavelo (pl), which is owned by BikeU of the French multinational company Egis.

There were at least 90 synagogues in Kraków active before the Nazi German invasion of Poland, serving its burgeoning Jewish community of 60,000–80,000 (out of the city's total population of 237,000), established since the early 12th century.

[203] Most synagogues of Kraków were ruined during World War II by the Nazis who despoiled them of all ceremonial objects, and used them as storehouses for ammunition, firefighting equipment, as general storage facilities and stables.

Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah (emigration to Israel) without visas or exit permits upon the conclusion of World War II.

[210] Its principal academic asset is the Jagiellonian Library, with more than 4 million volumes, including a large collection of medieval manuscripts[211] like Copernicus' De Revolutionibus and the Balthasar Behem Codex.

[241] Academy of Music in Kraków, founded in 1888, is known worldwide as the alma mater of the contemporary Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and it is also the only one in Poland to have two winners of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw among its alumni.

[244] The Kraków tour-guide from the Lesser Poland Visitors Bureau indicated that not all statistics are recorded due to the considerable number of those who come, staying in readily available private rooms paid for by cash, especially from Eastern Europe.

The city is known in Czech, Slovak and Serbian as Krakov, in Hungarian as Krakkó, in Lithuanian as Krokuva, in Finnish as Krakova, in German and Dutch as Krakau, in Latin, Spanish and Italian as Cracovia, in French as Cracovie, in Portuguese as Cracóvia and in Russian as Краков.