It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east–west connection from Lviv to Kraków, and two additional lines, one of which links the city with the Slovak border.

[7] The place name Tarnów is widely used in different forms across Slavic Europe, and lands which used to be inhabited by Slavs, such as eastern Germany, Hungary, and northern Greece.

The name Tarnów comes from an early Slavic word trn/tarn, which means "thorn", or an area covered by thorny plants.

Already in the mid-9th century, on the Tarnów's St. Martin Mount (Góra sw. Marcina, 2.5 kilometers from the centre of today's city), a Slavic gord was established, probably by the Vistulans.

The name Tarnów, with a different spelling, was for the first time mentioned in a document of Papal legate, Cardinal Gilles de Paris (1124).

[7] The first documented mention of Tarnów occurs in the year 1309, when a list of miracles of Kinga of Poland specifies a woman named Marta, who was resident of the settlement.

In 1327, a knight named Spicymir (Leliwa coat of arms) purchased a village of Tarnów Wielki, and three years later, founded his own private town.

One year later, construction of a castle on the St. Martin Hill was completed by Castellan of Kraków, Spycimir Leliwita of Leliwa coat of arms (its ruins can still be seen).

In 1467, the waterworks and sewage systems were completed, with large cisterns filled with drinking water built in the main market square.

In the 16th century, during the period known as the Polish Golden Age, Tarnów had a school, a synagogue, a Calvinist prayer house, Roman Catholic churches, and up to twelve guilds.

The monument of hetman Tarnowski is almost 14 meters tall, and stands in St. Anne Chapel, which is located in northern nave of the Tarnów Cathedral.

Austrian subjugation brought changes, as the town ceased to be private property, became the seat of a county (German: kreis), and of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarnów (1783).

Plans for a national uprising in Galicia failed in early 1846, when local peasants began murdering the nobility in the Galician slaughter.

Szela's peasant units surrounded and attacked manor houses and settlements located in three counties – Sanok, Jasło, and Tarnów.

In the Second Polish Republic, Tarnów belonged to Kraków Voivodeship, and gave the newly established country many outstanding figures, such as Franciszek Latinik and Wincenty Witos.

In early 1927, construction of a large chemical plant was initiated in the suburban village of Świerczków [pl], which is now a part of the industrial borough of Mościce, a district of the city.

Under German occupation, Tarnów was incorporated into the General Government territory as the seat of the Kreishauptmanschaft Tarnow administrative unit in the Kraków District on 26 October 1939.

[13] On 14 June 1940, the first mass transport left the Tarnów station to Auschwitz concentration camp, with 728 Polish political prisoners,[14] including at least 67 underage boys.

Many Tarnów Jews fled to the east, while a large influx of refugees from elsewhere in occupied Poland continued to increase the town's Jewish population.

During this time period, on the streets of the town and in the Jewish cemetery, about 3,000 Jews were shot; in the woods of Zbylitowska Góra a few kilometers away from Tarnów a further 7,000 were murdered.

[21][22] Many Poles were imprisoned by the Germans in the local prison for rescuing and helping Jews and then often deported to Auschwitz and other concentration camps, in which some died, while some fortunately survived until the end of the war.

Living conditions in the ghetto were deplorable, marked by severe food shortages, a lack of sanitary facilities, and a forced-labor regimen in factories and workshops producing goods for the German war industry.

In September 1942, the Germans ordered all ghetto residents to report to Targowica Square, where they were subjected to a 'selection' in which those deemed 'non-essential' were singled out for deportation to Belzec.

[17] The church of Our Lady of the Scapular in Tarnów was built on a plot that was illegally obtained by the parish from the descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors.

A year later the case was re-opened after the Church appealed to the local district attorney, with the personal involvement of Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro.

; as well as food plants (Fritar), building materials (Leier Polska S.A., Bruk-Bet), textiles (Spółdzielnia "Tarnowska Odzież, Tarnospin, Tarkonfex"), and several warehouses, as well as a distribution center of the Lidl supermarket chain.

Furthermore, the city is a rail junction, with four lines: three main electrified routes (westward to Kraków, eastward to Dębica and southward to Nowy Sącz), as well as secondary-importance local connection to Szczucin.

The history of rail transport in Tarnów dates back to the year 1856, when the Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis reached the city.

Office is well equipped with a wide variety of brochures and souvenirs, it also serves as a bike rental spot, luggage storage and small guesthouse (4 rooms/8 beds).

Tarnów is twinned with:[41] Former twin towns: In June 2021, the Tarnów city council decided to suspend its partnership with the Ukrainian town of Ternopil as a reaction to the naming of a stadium in Ternopil in honour of Roman Shukhevych, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army responsible for massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia perpetrated between 1943–1945.