Welcome to Lublin!
Lublin is a city in eastern Poland and the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 324 637 (2016). In the Middle Ages Lublin played an important role in the life of the Polish state as a trade center and as a city with military significance. Today, most travelers to Lublin will be there to visit the Majdanek Memorial and Museum, a former Nazi German concentration camp.
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 338,586 (December 2020). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of the Vistula River and is about 170 km (106 mi) to the southeast of Warsaw by road.
One of the events that greatly contributed to the city's development was the Polish-Lithuanian Union of Krewo in 1385. Lublin thrived as a center of trade and commerce due to its strategic location on the route between Vilnius and Kraków, the inhabitants had the privilege of free trade in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Lublin Parliament session of 1569 led to the creation of a real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, thus creating the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Lublin witnessed the early stages of Reformation in the 16th century. A Calvinist congregation was founded and groups of radical Arians appeared in the city, making it an important global center of Arianism. Until the partitions at the end of the 18th century, Lublin was a royal city of the Crown Kingdom of Poland. Its delegates and nobles had the right to participate in the royal election. In 1578, Lublin was chosen as the seat of the Crown Tribunal, the highest appeal court in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and for centuries, the city has been flourishing as a center of culture and higher learning.
The city is viewed as an attractive location for foreign investment, and the analytical Financial Times Group has found Lublin to be one of the best cities for business in Poland. The Foreign Direct Investment ranking placed Lublin second among larger Polish cities in the cost-effectiveness category. Lublin is noted for its green spaces and a high standard of living, the city has been selected as the 2023 European Youth Capital. Its historical Old Town is one of Poland's national monuments (Pomnik historii) tracked by the National Heritage Board of Poland.