Pszczyna [ˈpʂt͡ʂɨna] (German: Pleß, Czech: Pština) is a town in southern Poland, population 25,823 (2019), and is the seat of a local gmina (commune) and district.

Ezechiel Zivier (1868–1925) hypothesized that the land was first owned by Pleszko (alternatively Leszko, or possibly Leszek, Duke of Racibórz).

Brückner's derivation, suggesting a marshy lakeside, based on Proto-Slavic plszczyna, is generally accepted in literature.

Yet another explanation has been put forward by Prof. Jan Miodek of Wrocław University, who derives the town's name from the name of a nearby river, now known as Pszczynka.

The oldest recorded versions of the town's name (Plisschyn, Plisczyna, Plyssczyna, Blissczyna, Blyssczyna, Plesna, Pssczyna) exclude none of the above derivations, except perhaps the Leszko/Leszek one, which seems far fetched.

Casimir II the Just ceded the land to Mieszko Plątonogi, another Piast duke, of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz, about 1177.

Mieszko Plątonogi was succeeded by other dukes from the Opole-Racibórz line: Casimir I of Opole, Mieszko II the Fat, his brother Władysław Opolski, his two sons - Casimir of Bytom and Bolko I of Opole, and finally Leszek of Racibórz, who was the last to preserve the Duchy's independence.

The land was inherited by her son, Nicholas V, Duke of Krnov and then his widow, Barbara Rockenberg, daughter of a wealthy Kraków merchant.

Aggressive policies caused a conflict between Wenceslaus III and the King of Hungary and Bohemia, Matthias Corvinus.

Casimir II, Duke of Cieszyn, the last of the local Piast dynasty bloodline, received the land in 1480 as a dowry of his wife, Joanna.

Two years later, Louis II, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia instituted the "Free State of Pszczyna", with its ruler responsible not to him but directly to the Holy Roman Emperor.

During the Polish January Uprising in 1863 Poles smuggled large amounts of gunpowder through the town to the Russian Partition of Poland.

[6] When World War I erupted, the Hochbergs lent the estate to the German state for military purposes.

The German chief of staff held his headquarters at the castle of Pleß, often visited by Emperor Wilhelm II himself.

[7] In view of the plebiscite results and in consequence of the Third Silesian Uprising the Versailles Treaty gave the land of Pleß to the Second Polish Republic.

During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II, fighting occurred in the surroundings of Pszczyna, which can be seen by observing the leftovers of concrete strongholds around the town.

On September 4, in the local park, the German Freikorps murdered 14 Poles who had taken part in the defense of nearby Katowice (13 boy scouts and one school teacher).

Poles arrested during the Intelligenzaktion, aimed at the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, were imprisoned in a local court prison, and then deported to concentration camps.

[9] From November 1942 to April 1943, the Germans operated a forced labour subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp in the present-day district of Stara Wieś.

[10] In the final stages of the war, in January 1945, the Nazi Germans murdered many prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who tried to escape during a death march.

The Jewish community was small before the edict of 1780 granting Jews the right to settle in Silesian towns to the east of river Oder.

The warm tropical air coming through the Moravian Gate (a depression between the Sudetes and the Carpathian Mountains) contributes to this.

The eastern part offers the most favorable environment for plants and vegetation, with over 220 days of growing season and 770 mm (30 in) of precipitation.

The period of windless weather appears regularly, caused by the cover of, and the dry down-slope foehn winds arriving from, the Beskid Śląski mountain range.