Wrocław is the chief city in south-western Poland, situated on the River Oder (Polish: Odra). Wrocław is the former capital of Silesia and today, capital of Lower Silesian Voivodeship. Over the centuries, the city has been either part of Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia or Germany. According to official population figures for June 2009, its population is 632,000, making it the fourth largest city in Poland. Wrocław, along with San Sebastián, Spain, will be the European Capital of Culture in 2016.
Wrocław’s major industries were traditionally the manufacture of railroad cars and electronics. In recent years the City Council has run an active policy to attract foreign investors from the high-tech sector. This resulted among others in the location of LG Electronics production cluster in Kobierzyce near Wrocław. After 1989, Wrocław became a significant financial centre and houses the headquarters of several nationwide financial institutions such as Bank Zachodni WBK, Lukas Bank, Getin Bank, and Europejski Fundusz Leasingowy. As of the end of 2008, Wrocław enjoyed a very low unemployment level of just 3.2% compared with the national level of 8.7%. In 2008, per capita gross domestic product in Wrocław came to 27755$ (in Poland 17625$).
Along with almost all of Lower Silesia, the city became part of Poland under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. The Polish name of Wrocław became its official name. There had been some discussion among the Western Allies to mark the southern Polish-German boundary on the Glatzer Neisse; this would have meant that post-war Germany would have been allowed to retain approximately half of Silesia, including Breslau. However the Soviets insisted that the border be drawn at the Lusatian Neisse farther west.
Most remaining German inhabitants in Wrocław fled or were forcibly expelled from Wrocław between 1945 and 1949 and moved to Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. A small German minority remains in the city till this day, although the city’s last German school closed in 1963. The Polish population was dramatically increased by government resettlement of Poles during postwar population transfers (75%) as well as during the forced deportations from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union in the east region.
Wrocław is now a unique European city of mixed heritage, with architecture influenced by Bohemian, Austrian and Prussian traditions, such as Silesian Gothic and its Baroque style of court builders of Habsburg Austria (Fischer von Erlach). Wrocław has a number of notable buildings by German modernist architects including the famous Centennial Hall (Hala Stulecia or Jahrhunderthalle) (1911–1913) designed by Max Berg.
In July 1997, the city was heavily affected by a flood of the River Oder, the worst flooding in post-war Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Around ⅓ of the city’s area stood under water. An earlier equally devastating flood of the river took place in 1903.
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