Kościerzyna

Kościerzyna is a town in Kashubia, in the Gdańsk Pomerania region of northern Poland, about 50 kilometres south-west of Gdańsk. It has been the seat of Kościerzyna County in Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999 and had 23,327 inhabitants as of June 2023. The oldest known mention of the settlement is a document of 1284, it was granted municipal rights in 1346 and obtained the status of a town in 1398. The name comes from the Old Polish word kościerz, meaning thicket. The Teutonic Knights annexed it in 1310, it returned to the Kingdom of Poland after the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466, passed to Prussia in 1772 and was reintegrated with Poland in January 1920. Fires repeatedly destroyed the town in the 17th and 18th centuries. Visitors come for the market square with its historic townhouses and the Skansen Parowozownia railway museum.