Międzyrzecz ([mʲɛnˈd͡zɨʐɛt͡ʂ]; Latin: Meserici, German: Meseritz, Yiddish: מעזריטש, romanized: Mezrits[2]) is a town in western Poland, on the Obra and Paklica river, with 17,667 inhabitants (2020).

Extensive forests and numerous lakes can be found in the vicinity, including two Natura 2000 protected areas south of the town.

The settlement on the road leading from Magdeburg to Gniezno was first mentioned as Mezerici by the medieval chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg in the course of the 1005 campaign of King Henry II of Germany into the Polish lands of Duke Bolesław I Chrobry.

[3] It remained a western outpost of the Duchy of Greater Poland, established by the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty, after the loss of Lubusz Land in the mid-13th century and was incorporated into the Poznań Voivodeship of the Polish Crown upon the coronation of King Władysław I the Elbow-high in 1320.

After the failed Greater Poland Uprising of 1848, it was incorporated into the Province of Posen, which, with Prussia, became part of the unified German Empire in 1871.

In the late days of World War II, Meseritz was occupied by Red Army forces in the course of the Vistula–Oder Offensive on 31 January 1945.