Nowy Sącz was founded on 8 November 1292 by the Polish and Bohemian ruler Wenceslaus II, on the site of an earlier village named Kamienica.

The foundation of Nowy Sącz took place due to the efforts of Bishop of Kraków, Paweł of Przemanków [pl], who owned Kamienica.

Upon request of the bishop, Wenceslaus II granted it Magdeburg rights, making it the only Polish town founded by the Bohemian king.

In the 14th and 15th century Nowy Sącz emerged as one of the most important economic and cultural centres of this part of the Kingdom of Poland.

The town benefited from its proximity on the trade route to Hungary due to privileges granted by King Władysław I the Elbow-high, and later his son, Casimir III the Great, for supporting him during the Rebellion of wojt Albert in 1311–1312.

In the mid-14th century, King Casimir the Great built a royal castle here and surrounded the town with a defensive wall.

Nowy Sącz was the seat of a castellan and a starosta, becoming an important point in the system of defence of the southern border of Poland.

The decline of the town continued in the 18th century, when Nowy Sącz suffered more destruction during the Great Northern War and the Bar Confederation, when the castle was burned.

In 1772, during the First Partition of Poland, the town was annexed by the Habsburg Empire and made part of newly formed Galicia, where it remained until November 1918.

In June 1940, the resistance rescued Jan Karski from a hospital there, and a year later 32 people were shot in reprisal for the escape; several others were sent to concentration camps.

Its inhabitants were deported aboard Holocaust trains to Belzec extermination camp over three days in August 1942 and murdered.

[citation needed] Across the river in the Jewish Cemetery, 300–500 Polish people were executed for their participation in the sheltering of Jews.

[citation needed] Several Poles were also held by the occupiers in the local prison for helping Jews, before being deported to concentration camps.

In 1947 much of the Lemko population, living in villages southeast of the town, was deported in Action Vistula (mostly to land recently regained from Germany) in reaction to the nationalist Ukrainian activity in the region.

The geological basis is Carpathian flysch – an undifferentiated grey-banded sandstone – with alluvial sediment from the Dunajec, Poprad, and Kamienica rivers in the valley basin.

Nowy Sącz had one of the first computer companies in Poland, with the largest assembly plant in Europe, but this has closed due to ownership friction with the government.

The city has many historic features, including one of the largest marketplaces in Europe after Kraków, along with one of the largest old squares in Poland The mountainous country around Nowy Sącz is also popular with tourists, hikers and skiers, especially the Beskid Sądecki mountains (part of the Carpathians), of which the highest peak is Radziejowa (1,262 m (4,140.42 ft) above sea level).