[4] The town is located in the historic Lower Silesia region on the right bank of the Kaczawa river, about 20 km (12 mi) southwest of Legnica.

Złotoryja in Polish literally means "gold-digging", referring to historic gold-panning sites on the Kaczawa river.

The coat of arms features a black eagle of the Silesian Piast dynasty standing over three green hills, with the golden background.

In the 13th century a Hospitaller and Franciscan monastery were founded in the town, which thus became one of the important cultural and religious centres of the region.

During the first Mongol invasion of Poland, in 1241 many of the miners took part in the Battle of Legnica, where most of them died, but the mining quickly recovered.

In 1329, under the rule of Duke Bolesław III the Generous, the whole Duchy of Legnica became a fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia under King John the Blind, yet it retained its local self-government.

Although by the early 15th century most of the gold deposits were depleted, the town started to gain significant income from the nearby Via Regia trade route linking Wrocław with Leipzig.

[8] In 1526 the town together with the rest of the Bohemian crown land of Silesia came under the suzerainty of the Austrian House of Habsburg.

[8] During the Thirty Years' War Goldberg changed hands several times and suffered especially in 1633, when Albrecht von Wallenstein, a former pupil of the gymnasium, beleaguered the city.

Duke Louis IV of Legnica granted new privileges aiming to help the town prosper through the development of cloth production.

[11] On August 26, 1813, the armies of French marshal Macdonald was defeated near the town by the forces of Prussian general von Blücher (see Combat of Goldberg).

[12] Goldberg became part of the newly formed German Empire in 1871 and at the end of the 19th century the town started to recover after almost 200 years of crisis.

In 1884 the town was connected to Liegnitz (Legnica) by a railroad, and by 1906 two additional lines were opened: to Świerzawa and Chojnów.

[citation needed] A large number of them were admeasured to refugee camps and settled later, mostly in the federal state Northrhine-Westphalia in West Germany.

In the nearby villages of Wilków and Nowy Kościół two important copper mines were founded and a large number of local engineers also participated in the development of the industrial region of Legnica.