Płońsk

Płońsk lies on the Płonka in Mazovia. Mentioned in 1155, it was a centre of a castellany in the first half of the fourteenth century. Around 1400 Duke Siemowit IV granted town rights under Chełmno law; merchants and craftspeople contributed to its growth. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries trade and crafts developed beside a route linking Lithuania and Prussia.

Płońsk became a Polish royal town and county centre. Wars with Sweden in the mid-seventeenth century damaged it and were followed by decline. After the third partition of the Commonwealth in 1795 it passed to Prussia, then to the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 and the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland in 1815.