The Old Town (Stare Miasto) is one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments (Pomnik historii),[1] as designated September 16, 1994 in the first round.

The areas north of today's Nankier Square and Uniwersytecka Street belonged to the prince's domain and were not part of the later founding city.

Scarce information is provided by various records of foundations, consecrations of parish churches (St. Adalbert, St. Andrew, and St. Lawrence), as well as archaeological excavations.

Two settlements established on the orthogonal geometrical grid were created in this way: those called Skultetas in 1214 and Civitas Wratislaviensis (the City of Wroclaw) in 1226, and the Novum Forum (New Market) existing since around 1230.

During the Mongolian invasion in 1241, the settlements were destroyed and rebuilt by re-location, joining them into one city and surrounding a defensive perimeter running in the line of today's Trasa W-Z.

[5] During the reconstruction, the emphasis was placed, for ideological reasons, on the preservation of objects from the Gothic era, i.e. from the times of the Piast rule.