Sambir

Sambir stands near the Dniester in the Carpathian foothills, where routes from the Hungarian lands meet those leading towards Lviv and the plains. Originally called Pohonycz, it became known as New Sambir, distinguishing it from the older settlement upstream. Its merchants dealt in salt, timber, livestock and wine carried across the mountains.

In 1390 Spytek of Melsztyn authorised the foundation of the town under Magdeburg law. Poles, Ruthenians, Germans and Jews settled there, and its markets benefited from the roads through the foothills. Turkish and Tatar raiders burned Sambir in 1498. In 1530 the starosta Krzysztof Szydłowski rebuilt the royal residence as a fortified site and strengthened the town with walls and ditches. Craft guilds were assigned sections of the defences to guard. Sambir passed to the Habsburg monarchy in the first partition of Poland in 1772.