Silesia facts for kids

Silesia

Location

Administration
Country:	Poland
State:
Province:	Śląsk
German name:	Schlesien
Capital:	Wroclaw, Katowice, Opole
Basic statistics
Area:	40,319.2 km²
Population:	4,868,764 (1939)
Time zone:	UTC+1 (MEZ)
Website:

Silesia (Polish: Śląsk; German: Schlesien; Latin: Silesia; Silesian: Ślůnsk) is a historical region of Poland. Between 1742 – 1945, it was the eastern part of Germany and was a Prussian province. In 1945, all of Poland country was occupied by the Soviet Red Army. In the following years, the occupant enacted laws that in effect chased away the remaining all of owners (communism).

Geography

Silesia is along the upper and middle Oder River, upper Vistula River, and along the Sudetes mountains and the Carpathian Mountains.

The highest point of Silesia is the Śnieżka - in the Sudetes mountains.

Administrative region of Wroclaw (Breslau), 1914

Cities

The largest cities of Silesia (Population of 1939):

Name	Population
Wrocław	630,041
Katowice	127,044 (1931)
Zabrze	126,211
Gliwice	117,323
Chorzów	102,349 (1931)
Bytom	100,891
Zgorzelec	93,823
Legnica	83,701
Walbrzych	64,072
Opole	52,992
Racibórz	50,000

Other Cities are: Brzeg, Boleslawiec, Kozle, Zabkowice Slaskie, Klodzko, Głogów, Strzelce Opolskie, Zielona Gora, Zlotoryja, Jelenia Gora, Glubczyce, Nysa, Swidnica, Trzebnica

Famous people

There are many famous people who were born in Silesia:

Writers, poets and playwrights like Andreas Gryphius, Martin Opitz, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau, Carl Hauptmann, Gerhart Hauptmann (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1912), Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Gustav Freytag
Members of the German Resistance such as Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke,
Military officers such as Manfred von Richthofen, Erwin von Witzleben
Painters like Adolph von Menzel
Philosophers like Jakob Böhme
Actors like Dieter Hildebrandt, Victor de Kowa, Ludwig M. Lommel, Wolfgang Neuss, Willy Fritsch, Hanna Schygulla, Georg Thomalla
Politicians like Paul Löbe (SPD), Klaus Töpfer (CDU), Manfred Kanther (CDU), Ferdinand Lassalle, Erich Mende (FDP)
Scientists like Hans G. Dehmelt (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1989), Paul Ehrlich (Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1908), Friedrich Bergius (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1931), Max Born (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1954), Fritz Haber (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1918), Reinhard Selten (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1994), Konrad Bloch (Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1964), Bernhard Grzimek, Johannes Winkler, Maria Goeppert-Mayer (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963), Kurt Alder (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1950), Otto Stern (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1943)
Builder and architects like Carl Gotthard Langhans
Musicians like Katja Ebstein, Roy Etzel, Michael Jary

Gallery

First map of Silesia (1561)
City hall of Breslau, Germany between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900. View from the east.
Krummhuebel, Church of Wang (German: Kirche Wang) between 1890 and 1905.
Postcard of the market square in the city of Oppeln in 1904.
Hotel "Haus Oberschlesien" (transl.: Upper Silesia House) in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany, 1928

Images for kids

Silesia in an early period of Poland's fragmentation, 1172–1177
Lands of the Bohemian Crown until 1742 when most of Silesia was ceded to Prussia
1905 administrative map of Province of Silesia showing the historical locations of Upper Silesia (Oppeln) in red, Middle Silesia (Breslau) in yellow, and Lower Silesia (Liegnitz) in green
Coal Mine Bolesław Śmiały, Łaziska Górne
Polish names of Silesian cities, from a 1750 Prussian official document published in Berlin during the Silesian Wars.
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