Raków [ˈrakuf] is a village in Kielce County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland.

It lies in historic Lesser Poland, approximately 39 km (24 mi) south-east of the regional capital Kielce.

[1] Raków was founded in 1569 by Jan Sienieński [pl], a Calvinist who was castellan of Żarnów, as the centre of the Polish Brethren and a place of religious tolerance.

On April 19, 1638, an incident occurred in which some young students of the academy destroyed or removed a cross, giving the royal court the pretext needed to ban Arian activities, including printing and the schools, and sentenced teachers to exile, many heading south to the Principality of Transylvania.

Following the Austro-Polish War of 1809, it was regained by Poles and included within the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, and after its dissolution it fell to the Russian Partition of Poland.