List of cities and towns in Poland

Executive power in a rural gmina is exercised by a wójt, while the homologue in municipalities containing cities or towns is called accordingly either a city mayor (prezydent miasta) or a town mayor (burmistrz), all of them elected by a two-round direct election, while the town/city council is the legislative, budget-making and oversight body.

Any local laws considered non-compliant with the national ones may be invalidated by the respective voivode, whose rulings may be appealed to an administrative court.

A town or city mayor may be scrutinized or denied funding for his/her projects by the council, but is not politically responsible to it and does not require its confidence to remain in office; therefore, cohabitation is not uncommon.

There is, however, a number of exemptions due to historic or political reasons, when a municipality meets neither of these two conditions but nevertheless has the city status, including the only 3 capitals of the former voivodeships of Poland (1975–1998) not meeting the abovementioned criteria, as well as 38 other municipalities which do not fit into any of the mentioned categories but have nevertheless been allowed to keep the earlier awarded status due to unspecified historical reasons.

Warsaw forms together with these counties a NUTS 2 area separate as an exception from the remainder of its home region, the Mazovian Voivodeship.

A strategic cooperation declaration, the Tricity Charter (Polish: Karta Trójmiasta), was signed by the three city mayors on 28 March 2007.