It serves as the administrative center of Sambir Raion (district) and is located close to the border with Poland.

Through Sambor run electrified railway tracks, trunk pipelines and power lines.

This was founded in the 12th century and served as an important center of the Halych Princedom of Kyivan Rus' Ruthenia.

Upon the death of the last ruler of the Kingdom of Rus’ Yuri II Boleslav (Yurij II Boleslav Traidenovych) in 1349 became part of the Kingdom of Poland and later on part of Ruthenian Voivodeship (Latin: Palatinatus russiae, Polish: Województwo ruskie, Ukrainian: Руське воєводство, romanized: Ruske voievodstvo, also called Rus’ Voivodeship in [Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth] (Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).

The foundations of the future city of Sambir were laid in 1390 by the voivode of Kraków, Spytek of Melsztyn, a companion and adviser to the Polish king Władysław II Jagiełło (1396–1434) in his war expeditions.

The king granted his loyal companion, for his military services, enormous pieces of land, from Dobromyl to Stryi.

Spytek (also Spytko), evaluating the importance of Pohonicz, left a document dated 13 December 1390 addressed to the Wojt (Mukhtar), Henrik from Landshut, permitting him to establish a city in Pohonicz to be called Novyi-Sambor, granting it the rights of Magdeburg.

It may be assumed that, it being on the important commercial and strategic crossroads near the Dniester and its tributary Mlinuvka, it served as a worth center for fortification and defense.

The grant of municipal rights led to people flocking to the city – Poles, Ruthenians, Germans and Jews.

In January 1394, King Wladyslaw Jagiello, at Spytko's request, exempted the inhabitants from paying various taxes.

The Dniester had already played an important role as a natural water route leading to Akerman near the Black Sea.

In 1530, in view of all the invasions and attacks on the city, the Starosta (district governor) Krzysztof Odrowaz Szydlowski surrounded it with a thick wall and deep trenches, to enable it to be defended.

For two hundred and fifty years, Sambor, thus enclosed, was compelled to shrink, limiting itself to narrow streets, without any possibility of expanding and developing naturally.

The city was frozen into restricting borders until the first years of the Austrian conquest in 1772 (see: Partitions of Poland).

Furthermore, each of the eleven artisans' guilds in the city had to take upon itself the obligation to guard and defend a certain part of the wall, as well as provide arms at its own expense.

The new Ratusz was completed only in 1668, and then, for the first time, at the top of the tower the city emblem was unfurled: a deer with an arrow in its throat.

When the Starosta Shidlovski rebuilt it in 1530, near the Dniester, he built it as a fortress, surrounded by moats, behind which were earthen walls.

In the royal palace, which was the seat of the Starosta, there was, besides the service workers numbering sixty-five in 1569, a garrison composed of infantry and cavalry.

The royal palace of Sambor had the honor to host within it almost all the kings of Poland and heads of state; many splendid receptions were held there with the participation of the city's notables.

However, the "dispute was successfully resolved in favor of the Lord"[3] and a wooden The Church of Nativity of the Theotokos was built, which served until 1738, when it was rebuilt in stone.

On May 20–22, 1943, a third ghetto action was carried out and several hundreds of Jews “incapable of working” were shot in the forest of Ralivka.

[9][10] Today the 704th Detached Regiment of Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Protection of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is located in the town.