Świecie

Świecie stands on the western bank of the Vistula at the mouth of the Wda. In the Middle Ages it was a residence of the Pomeranian duke Grzymisław. The Teutonic Order later ruled the district and granted the town municipal government; between 1338 and 1375 the settlement moved from the higher bank into the Vistula valley.

The Prussian Confederation captured Świecie in 1454 during the Thirteen Years' War. In 1466 the Order recognized it as part of Poland, and it became a royal town in Royal Prussia. Its position at the intersection of trade routes supported its prosperity, although Swedish invasion and an epidemic brought hardship in the seventeenth century. The town passed to Prussia in the first partition of Poland in 1772.