From 1264 until 1411, Toruń was part of the Hanseatic League and by the 17th century a leading trading point, which greatly affected the city's architecture, ranging from Brick Gothic to Mannerist and Baroque.
In the 14th century, papal verdicts ordered the restoration of the area to Poland; however, the Teutonic Knights did not comply and continued to occupy the region.
In the 1420s, Polish King Władysław II Jagiełło built the Dybów Castle, located in present-day left-bank Toruń, which he visited numerous times.
[18] The Confederation rose against the Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in 1454 and its delegation submitted a petition to Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon asking him to regain power over the region as its rightful ruler.
[20][21] The local mayor pledged allegiance to the Polish king during the incorporation in March 1454 in Kraków,[22] and then in May 1454, an official ceremony was held in Toruń, in which the nobility, knights, landowners, mayors, and local officials from Chełmno Land, including Toruń, again solemnly swore allegiance to the Polish king and the Kingdom of Poland.
The Thirteen Years' War ended in 1466, with the Second Peace of Thorn, in which the Teutonic Order renounced any claims to the city and recognised it as part of Poland.
Also in 1454 at Dybów Castle, the King issued the famous Statutes of Nieszawa, covering a set of privileges for the Polish nobility; an event that is regarded as the birth of the noble democracy in Poland, which lasted until the country's demise in 1795.
In 1645, at a time when religious conflicts occurred in many other European countries and the disastrous Thirty Years' War was fought west of Poland, in Toruń, on the initiative of King Władysław IV Vasa, a three-month congress of European Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists was held, known as Colloquium Charitativum; an important event in the history of interreligious dialogue.
The restoration of Augustus II the Strong as King of Poland was prepared in the city in the Treaty of Thorn (1709) by the Russian tsar Peter the Great.
[33] Under German occupation, local people were subjected to arrests, expulsions, slave labor, deportations to concentration camps and executions, especially the Polish elites as part of the Intelligenzaktion.
[35] In early November 1939, the Germans carried out further mass arrests of Polish teachers, farmers and priests in Toruń and the county, who were then imprisoned in Fort VII.
[35] Large massacres of over 1,100 Poles from the city and region, including teachers, school principals, local officials, restaurateurs, shop owners, merchants, farmers, railwaymen, policemen, craftsmen, students, priests, workers, doctors, were carried out in the present-day district of Barbarka.
[38] Nonetheless, the Polish resistance movement was active in the city, and Toruń was the seat of one of the six main commands of the Union of Armed Struggle in occupied Poland (alongside Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Białystok and Lwów).
[39] During the occupation, Germany established and operated Stalag XX-A prisoner-of-war camp in the city, with multiple forced labour subcamps in the region, in which Polish, British, French, Australian and Soviet POWs were held.
From 1940 to 1943, in the northern part of the city the German transit camp Umsiedlungslager Thorn [pl] for Poles expelled from Toruń and the surrounding area, became infamous for inhuman sanitary conditions.
Thus, the city avoided damage during both World Wars, and retained its historic architecture, ranging from Gothic through Renaissance and Baroque to 19th and 20th century styles.
The city is famous for having preserved almost intact its medieval spatial layout and many Gothic buildings, all built from brick, including monumental churches, the Town Hall and many burgher houses.
Besides the renovation of various buildings, projects such as the reconstruction of the pavement of the streets and squares (reversing them to their historical appearance), and the introduction of new plants, trees and objects of 'small architecture', are underway.
Back in 1930s, the city passed close to the original boundary and dividing line of climates C and D groups in the north–south direction proposed by climatologist Wladimir Köppen.
[45] Toruń is in the transition between the milder climates of the west and north of the Poland and the more extreme ones like the south (warmer summer) and the east (colder winter).
A joint venture of Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Solec Kujawski and the voivodeship, it is considered as important in integrating Bydgoszcz-Toruń metropolitan area.
In 2006, construction of new plants owned by Sharp Corporation and other companies of mainly Japanese origin has started in the neighboring community of Łysomice - about 10 kilometres (6 miles) from city centre.
As a result of cooperation of the companies mentioned above, a vast high-tech complex is to be constructed in the next few years, providing as many as 10,000 jobs (a prediction for [needs update]) at the cost of about 450 million euros.
This makes tourism an important branch of the local economy, although time spent in the city by individual tourists or the number of hotels, which can serve them, are still not considered satisfactory.
Major investments in renovation of the city's monuments, building new hotels (including high-standard ones), improvement in promotion, as well as launching new cultural and scientific events and facilities, give very good prospects for Toruń's tourism.
The Centre of Contemporary Art (Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej - CSW) opened in June 2008 and is one of the most important cultural facilities of this kind in Poland.
Redemptorist Tadeusz Rydzyk has organized here Radio Maryja, Telewizja Trwam, a college whose students contribute to the mentioned media.
The existence of a high-ranked and high-profiled university with so many students plays a great role the city's position and importance in general, as well as in creating an image of Toruń's streets and clubs filled with crowds of young people.
The Ślimak Getyński is one of the lanes connecting Piłsudski Bridge / John Paul II Avenue with Philadelphia Boulevard at their downtown interchange.
It honours the relationship with Göttingen, its name derived from the street's half-circular shape (Polish word ślimak meaning "snail").