Sanok

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Sanok

(Flag)	(Coat of arms)
Motto: Libera Regia Civitas (Free Royal City)

Basic Information
Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Subcarpathian
Population	41,000
City rights	1339
Agglomeration	50,000
Economy and Traffic
Administration
Municipal Website

Sanok, Latin: Sanocum, German: Saanig, Yiddish: Sonik, Ukrainian: Сянiк (Sianik), in full The Royal Free City of Sanok, Polish: Królewskie Wolne Miasto Sanok), part of The Land of Sanok (Polish: Ziemia Sanocka, and Ruthenian Voivodeship), is a town in south-eastern Poland with 41,261 inhabitants (2005).

Sanok is situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodship (since 1999), previously in Krosno Voivodship (1975-1998), in Ruthenian Voivodeship (1340 - 1772) part of the Little Poland Province .

This historic city is situated on San River at the foot of Zamek Hill in Little Poland (Małopolska) region, lies in a wooded, hilly area on the highway (Nr. DK28) from Ustrzyki Dolne to Wadowice (340 km. away).

Settled in prehistoric times, the south-eastern Poland region that is now Podkarpacie was overrun in pre-Roman times by various tribes, including the Celts, Goths and Vandals (Przeworsk culture and Puchov culture). After the fall of the Roman Empire, of which most of south-eastern Poland was part (all parts below the San), the area was invaded by Hungarians and Slavs.

The region subsequently became part of the Great Moravian state. Upon the invasion of the Hungarian tribes into the heart of the Great Moravian Empire around 899, the Lendians of the area declared their allegiance to Hungarian Empire. The region then became a site of contention between Poland, Kievan Rus and Hungary starting in at least the 9th century.

Approximate borders of Great Moravia at its greatest extent on an older map (in 890 - 894)

The first traces of settlement in the area of modern Sanok date back to at least 9th century. The following century a Slavic fortified town was created there and initially served as a center of pagan worship. The etymology of the name is unclear, though most scholars derive it from the Celtic root - San. In 981 the gord, then inhabited by the Slavic tribe of Lendzians, was made a part of Land of Czerwień. This area was mentioned for the first time in 981, when Volodymyr the Great of Kievan Rus took the area over on the way into Poland. In 1018 it returned to Poland, 1031 back to Rus, in 1340 Casimir III of Poland recovered it.

The gord of Sanok in mentioned first time in Hypatian Codex in 1150. It was given the Magdeburg law by Boleslaus George II of Halych in 1339.

Sanok contains an open air museum in the Biała Góra district, where examples of architecture from all of the region's main ethnic groups have been moved and carefully reassembled in a skansen evoking everyday rural life in the 1800s.