The city lies in an area connecting mountains and lowlands known as the Przemyśl Gate (Brama Przemyska), with open lines of transport, and fertile soil.

Selected languages include: Czech: Přemyšl; German: Premissel, Prömsel, Premslen; Latin: Premislia; Ukrainian: Перемишль (Peremyshlj) and Пшемисль (Pshemyslj); and Yiddish: פּשעמישל (Pshemishl).

When Mieszko I annexed the tribal area of Lendians in 970–980, Przemyśl became an important local centre on the eastern frontier of Piast's realm.

Around the year 1069, Przemyśl again returned to Poland, after Bolesław II the Generous retook the town and temporarily made it his residence.

The palatium complex including a Latin rotunda was built during the rule of the Polish king Bolesław I the Brave in the 11th century.

Like nearby Lwów, the city's population consisted of a great number of nationalities, including Poles, Jews, Germans, Czechs, Armenians and Ruthenians.

The long period of prosperity enabled the construction of public buildings such as the Renaissance town hall and the Old Synagogue of 1559.

[12] The prosperity came to an end in the middle of the 17th century, caused by the invading Swedish army during the Deluge, and a general decline of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In 1861, the Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis built a connecting line from Przemyśl to Kraków, and east to Lwów.

During the Crimean War, when tensions mounted between Russia and Austria, a series of massive fortresses, 15 km (9 mi) in circumference, were built around the city by the Austrian military.

The Przemyśl fortress fulfilled its mission very effectively, helping to stop a 300,000-strong Russian army advancing upon the Carpathian Passes and Kraków, the Lesser Poland regional capital.

However, on 3 November, a Ukrainian military unit overthrew the government, arrested its leader and captured the eastern part of the city.

The battlefront divided the city along the river San, with the western borough of Zasanie held in Polish hands and the Old Town controlled by the Ukrainians.

Neither Poles nor Ukrainians could effectively cross the San river, so both opposing parties decided to wait for a relief force from the outside.

That race was won by the Polish reinforcements and the volunteer expeditionary unit formed in Kraków arrived in Przemyśl on 10 November 1918.

On 11–14 September 1939, during the invasion of Poland, which started World War II, the German and Polish armies fought the Battle of Przemyśl in and around the city.

[16] The battle was followed by three days of massacres carried out by the German soldiers, police and Einsatzgruppe I against hundreds of Jews who lived in the city.

[20] The Soviet-occupied right-bank part of the city was incorporated to the Ukrainian SSR in the atmosphere of NKVD terror[21] as thousands of Jews were ordered to be deported.

[23] The town's population increased due to a large influx of Jewish refugees from the General Government who sought to cross the border to Romania.

On 27 July the Gestapo notified Judenrat about the forced resettlement program and posted notices that an "Aktion" (roundup for deportation to camps) was to be implemented involving almost all occupants.

On the same day, Major Max Liedtke, military commander of Przemyśl, ordered his troops to seize the bridge across the San river that connected the divided city, and halt the evacuation.

For the actions undertaken by Liedtke and his adjutant Albert Battel in Przemyśl, Yad Vashem later named them "Righteous Among the Nations".

[29] Then in December 1942, the occupiers relocated the Stalag 327 prisoner-of-war camp from Sanok to Przemyśl with multiple subcamps founded in the area.

Due to the killing of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust and the postwar expulsion of Ukrainians (in the Operation Vistula or akcja Wisła), the city's population fell to 36,000,[citation needed] almost entirely Polish.

The main road connection to the rest of Poland is provided by the A4 motorway that passes about 15 km north of the city center.

Due to the long and rich history of the city, there are many sights in and around Przemyśl, of special interest to tourists, including the Old Town, which is listed as a Historic Monument of Poland,[2] with the Rynek, the main market square.