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Gdańsk (formerly Danzig) is a Baltic Sea city with a long and colorful history. Gdańsk is the 6th largest city in Poland, its principal seaport, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodship.

The city lies on the southern coast of the Gdansk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdynia and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto) with a population of over a million people. Gdańsk is, with a population of 460,000 (2002), the largest city in the historical province of Eastern Pomerania.

Gdańsk

Flag of Gdansk CoA of Gdansk (Flag of Gdańsk) (Coat of Arms of Gdańsk)
Motto: Nec temere, nec timide (Neither rashly nor timidly)
Municipal government	Rada miasta Gdańsk
Mayor	Paweł Adamowicz
Area	262 km²
Latitude Longitude	54°40'N 18°60'E
Population  - total 2003  - density	461 400 1761/km²
Founded	997
Domain	gda.pl
Area code	++ 48 58
Car registration marks	GD 00001 to GD 99999
Twin towns	Astana, Barcelona, Bremen, Cleveland, Helsingør, Kaliningrad, Kalmar, Marseilles, Nice, Odessa, Rotterdam, Rouen, Sefton, St. Petersburg, Turku, Vilnius
Municipal Website

Gdańsk is situated at the mouth of the Motława (German Mottlau) river, a branch in the delta of the Vistula, whose waterway system connects 60% of the area of Poland, giving the city a unique advantage as the center of Poland's sea trade.

The city was for many centuries a German-speaking community and a large center of commerce. A major regional port since the 14th century and subsequently a principal ship-building centre, today's Gdańsk remains an important industrial centre despite the development in the 1920s of the nearby port of Gdynia.

Names

The city has been known under various names during its history. In the local Kashubian language it is known as Gduńsk and the Latin name for it is Gedania. However, the German and Polish versions are most common in English usage. The German name, Danzig, is usually used when talking about the period from 1871 until 1919 during which the city was in German hands or had a substantial German population. The Polish name, Gdańsk, is used for earlier as well as for modern times.

The name of Gdańsk is usually interpreted as a town located on Gdania river, which is thought to be the original name of the Motława branch the city is situated on. The territory was recorded as Scandza ("Gothic coast") by Jordanes, who recorded the Germanic tribes at the Vistula and the Prussian tribes of the Vidivaria, Ulmigeri and Aesti next to the Germanic tribes at the mouth of the Vistula river. The area was again recorded after 997 in the Vita Adalbertis, the life of Saint Adalbert of Prague, when it was mentioned as Gdańsk City (urbs Gyddanyzc), the fortress of the King Boleslaus I of Poland.

The name of a settlement was recorded after St. Adalbert's demise in 997 A.D. as urbs Gyddanyzc and later was written as Kdanzk (1148), Gdanzc (1188), Gdansk (1236), Danzc (1263), Danczk (1311, 1399, 1410, 1414–1438), Danczik (1399, 1410, 1414), Danczig (1414), Gdansk (1454, 1468, 1484), Gdansk (1590), Gdąnsk (1636) and in Latin documents Gedanum or Dantiscum. These early recordings show the Pomeranian name Gduńsk, the Polish name Gdańsk and a simplified German name Danzig (reflecting the presence over many centuries of a German-speaking population).

Alternative spellings from medieval and early modern documents are Gyddanyzc, Kdansk, Gdanzc, Dantzk, Dantzig, Dantzigk, Dantiscum and Gedanum. The official Latin name of Gedanum was used simultaneously.

On special occasions it is also known as The Royal Polish City of Gdansk; Polish: Królewskie Polskie Miasto Gdańsk, German: Koenigliche Polnische Stadt Danzig, Latin: Regia Civitas Polonica Gedanensis.

Sources:

• Gdańsk, in: Kazimierz Rymut, Nazwy Miast Polski, Ossolineum, Wrocław 1987
• Hubert Gurnowicz, Gdańsk, in: Nazwy miast Pomorza Gdańskiego, Ossolineum, Wrocław 1978

Administrations of Gdańsk

Administrations of Danzig 1862-1945
Administrations of Gdansk since 1945

The contemporary Gdansk is the capital of the Pomeranian province and one of the major centres of economic and administrative life in Poland. Many vital agencies of the state and local government levels have their main offices here: the Provincial Administration Office, Provincial Government, Ministerial Agency of the State Treasury, and the Agency for Consumer and Competition Protection, National Insurance regional office, Court of Appeal, and High Administrative Court.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Gdansk

The city's industrial kaleidoscope is dominated by traditional lines of shipbuilding, petrochemical and chemical industry, and food processing. Yet, the share of the know-how-based sectors such as electronics, telecommunication, IT engineering, or cosmetics and pharmaceuticals is on the rise. Amber processing so specific for the local economy is also prominent.

Major corporations

8 out of Rzeczpospolita Top 500 Polish companies have their hedquarters in Gdansk:

• Grupa Lotos SA, Gdansk - energy
• Energa Gdańska Kompania Energetyczna SA, Gdansk - energy
• GE Capital Bank SA, Gdansk - finance
• Gdańska Stocznia Remontowa SA, Gdansk - shipbuilding
• Elnord SA, Gdansk
• Elektrociepłownie Wybrzeże SA, Gdansk
• LPP SA, Gdansk
• Polnord Energobudowa SA, Gdansk

See also: Ports of the Baltic Sea.

Education

• Politechnika Gdanska (Gdansk)
• Uniwersytet Gdanski (Gdansk)
• Medical Academy of Gdansk
• Phisical Education Academy of Gdansk

Altogether 10 universities with 60,436 students, thereof 10,439 graduates (2001).

History

Main article: History of Gdansk (content copied from this article, please focus on most important facts and remove detailed stories)

Early times

Before Gdansk was established, the area was inhabited by populations belonging to the various archealogical cultures of the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Settlements existed in the area for several centuries BC. The coast was called Gothiscandza by Jordanes; Tacitus also referred to it in his Germania. Both historians believed the area to be populated.

It is known that the Kashubians migrated to the area, but it is sure they settled in neighboring areas in Pomerania with the general Slavic people's movement to the north and west from the Pripjet marshes after 600. There are traces of a crafts and fishing settlement from the 8th and 9th centuries, and, in the 10th century, an important stronghold of the Pomeranian dukes and at least 1,000 inhabitants.

Foundation of the City

Although there were already wooden structures, the year 997 has in recent years been considered to be the date of the foundation of the city itself, as the year in which Saint Adalbert of Prague (sent by the Polish king Boleslav the Brave to conquer Prussia) travelled through the castle of Gdańsk (Gyddanyzc): in 1997 Poland celebrated the millennium of Gdańsk's foundation by Mieszko I, Duke of later so called Poland, who all received to compete with the ports of Szczecin and Wolin on the Oder River.

In 1000 Gdańsk belonged to the territory later called Pomerania, and to the bishopric in Kołobrzeg (never actually in use), from ca 1015 to the Pomeranian bishopric in Kruszwica, and in 1124 the town had been assigned to the diocese of Włocławek (Cuiavia and Pomerania), while several crusades were ordered by the popes, to 'christianize' the pagan Prussians and Pomeranians, who for centuries defended semselves again take-over attempts by the rest of the Polish tribes.

Spellings of the name from medieval and early modern documents are Gyddanzyc, Kdansk, Gdanzc, Dantzk, Dantzk, Dantzig, Dantzigk, Dantiscum and Gedanum.

Capital of the Pomeranian Duchy (1138–1294/1308)

In the 12th century, Poland was divided into several provinces under the overlordship of the High-duke of Cracow. In reality, the duchy of Pomerania was regaining more and more independence. Gdańsk was the capital of an entire dynasty of the dukes, the most famous being Mestwin I (1207–1220), Swantipolk II the Great (1215–1266) and Mestwin II (1271–1294)

In ca. 1235 the city had some 2,000 inhabitants, and Swantipolk II granted a charter incorporating the Lübeck rights. More and more merchants from the Hansa cities of Lübeck and Bremen settled in the city. Officially chartered as a city in 1224, Gdańsk rose to become one of the more important trading and fishing ports along the Baltic Sea coast.

In 1282/1294, Mestwin II, the last duke of Eastern Pomerania, ceded all his lands including Gdańsk to the duke of Great Poland (later King) Przemysl II of Poland. After his assassination in 1296, the city was temporary ruled by the kings of Bohemia and Poland, Wenceslaus II and his son Wenceslaus III.

Under the rule of the Teutonic Knights (1308–1454)

At the beginning of the 14th century, the region was plunged into war involving Poland and Brandenburg to the west. Brandenburg's claim to Gdansk and Pomerania was based on a treaty of August 8, 1305 between Brandenburg's rulers and Wenceslaus III, promising the Meissen territory to the Bohemian crown in exchange for Gdansk Pomerania (the contract was not made).

During the course of the war, Gdansk was seized (November 1308) by the Teutonic Knights, called in by Wladislaw Lokietek of Poland. According to traditional Polish historiography all the inhabitants of the city, both Polish and German, were brutally slaughtered. However many historians claim that the massacre never happened. The Teutonic Order continued its invasion of the Polish lands, incorporating them into its domains. In September 1309, Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg sold his claim to the territory to the Teutonic Order for 10,000 marks. Since then the city became also known by its German name Danzig. This was the start of a series of conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Order. The massacre is sometimes disputed by some, but nevertheless after the supposed event there was some stagnation and even reversal in development of Danzig, which could confirm it.

Initially the new rulers tried to reduce the economic significance of Danzig, by abolishing the local government and the privileges of the Lübeck traders. This apparently relates to the fact that the Danzig city council members, including Arnold Hecht and Conrad Leczkow, were in 1411 removed and beheaded. Later they had to accept the fact that Danzig defended its independence and was the biggest seaport of the region after overtaking Elbing (now Elblag), another nearby Hanse city in importance. Subsequently the city flourished, benefiting from major investment and economic prosperity in Prussia and Poland, which stimulated trade along the Vistula. The city had become a full member of the Hanseatic League by 1361, but its merchants remained resentful at the barriers to the trade up the Vistula river to Poland, along with the lack of political rights in a state ruled in the interest of the Order's religiously-motivated knight-monks.

Possesion of Danzig by the Teutonic Order was questioned all the time by the Polish kings Wladyslaw the Elbow Hihg and Casimir the Great what led to a series of bloody wars and legal-suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Finally in 1343 peace was concluded when the Teutonic Knights accepted that they control Danzig Pomerania as an alm or gift of Polish kings, and they also acknowlegded the feudal overlordship of Poland. Polish rights to Pomerania were no longer questioned and the Polish kings retained the title Duke of Pomerania.

Leader of Royal Prussia (1454/66–1793)

In 1440, Danzig joined the nearby Hanseatic cities of Elbing (now Elblag) and Thorn (now Torun) which together with gentry from Pomerania formed the Prussian Confederation, which then asked Casimir IV of Poland for incorporation of whole Prussia into Polish kingdom (February 1454) against the Teutonic Order's rule. The resulting "War of the Cities" or Thirteen Years' War ended with the Order's defeat and its surrender to the Polish crown (Second Treaty of Thorn, October 1466) of its rights in Danzig Pomerania and the rest of the area subsequently known as "Polish" or Royal Prussia.

The 15th and 16th centuries brought changes to the city's cultural heritage. These changes could be seen in the arts, language, and contributions to the world of science. In 1471, a refurbished sailing ship under captain Paul Beneke brought the famous altar painting titled: Latest Judgement (Jüngste Gericht) by artist Hans Memling to the city. Around 1480–1490, tablets were installed at St. Mary's church, depicting the Ten Commandments (1) in the Low German language.

In 1566, the official language of the city's governing institutions was changed from the Low German used throughout the Hanseatic cities to High German.

Georg Joachim Rheticus visited the mayor of Danzig in 1539, while he was working with Nicolaus Copernicus in nearby Frombork. The mayor gave Rheticus financial assistance for the publication of the Narratio Prima, published by the in the city by the printer Rhode in 1540 and to this day considered the best introduction to the Copernican theory. While in Danzig, Rheticus, who was also a cartographer and navigational instrument maker, interviewed pilots as to their navigational needs. He presented the Tabula chorographica auff Preusse to Duke Albert of Prussia in 1541.

The city struggled to remain as independent member of the Hanseatic League through the 16th century against various pressures (see Albrecht IV Giese, a councilman and member of a long established Gdansk patrician family, for details).

Local printer Andreas Hünefeld(t) (Hunsfeldus) (1606–1652) printed a Danzig edition of the Rosicrucian Manifestos. Later on, he published the poems of Martin Opitz. The famous poet Opitz had died in 1639 and his friend, the pastor of Danzig, known as Bartholomaeus Nigrinus, together with two associates edited the Opitz poems for the Hünefeld printing house.

In 1606 a distillery named Der Lachs (the Salmon) was founded , which produced one of Danzig's most famous products, a liqueur named Danziger Goldwasser ("Danzig gold water"), made from herbs and with small 22-carat gold flakes floating in the bottle. The recipe for this went with those expelled in 1945 to western Germany, where it continued to be produced.

From the 14th century until the mid-17th century Danzig experienced rapid growth, becoming the largest city on the Baltic seaboard by the 16th century owing to its large trade with the Netherlands and its handling of most of Poland's seaborne trade, transported up north via the Vistula river. The city's prosperity was severely damaged, however, by the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the Second Northern War (1655–1660), and it suffered an epidemic of bubonic plague in 1709.

Danzig took part in all Hanseatic League conferences until the last one in 1669. By that time the United Provinces and other long-distance overseas commercial powers had overtaken the Baltic trade centres such as Danzig.

In 1743 a Danzig Research Society (Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Danzig) was formed by Daniel Gralath.

In the Kingdom of Prussia (1793–1806, 1815–1919)

In the first of the late 18th century Partitions of Poland (1772), the German-speaking inhabitants of Danzig fought fiercely to keep status quo, while the majority of Polish Pomerania fell to the Kingdom of Prussia. Danzig was surrounded by the Prussian territories until the Second Partition Of Poland (1793), when it was incorporated into the Prussian kingdom as part of the province of West Prussia, reverting at the Congress of Vienna to direct Prussian rule after a brief period (1807–14) as a free city.

From the first partition of Poland, the city lost its function as the principal port for Polish exports via the Baltic, and ceased to be the region's largest port as it experienced a prolonged economic and demographic slump.

With the industrial revolution and the steam engine trains, ships, and industrial machinery in nearby Elbing and Ferdinand Schichau's Schichau Werke gained the upper hand for the city of Elbing again. Schichau later constructed a large shipyard in Danzig as well, however.

From 1824 until 1878, East and West Prussia were combined as a single province under the Prussian kingdom. But although Danzig was a part of Kingdom of Prussia, it was never a member of the 1815–1866 German Confederation (Deutsche Bund). After the Confederation's dissolution, the city was included, along with the rest of Prussia in the North German Confederation in 1867 and the newly created German Empire in 1871.

Free City Danzig (1920–1939)

Following Germany's defeat in World War I, the Allied powers in the Treaty of Versailles (1919) decided to create the Free City of Danzig (under a commissioner appointed by the League of Nations) covering the city itself, the seaport, and a small surrounding territory. The purpose of this decision was to enable the Poles to use Danzig again as their chief port, while not subordinating the German population of the city to direct Polish rule. The League of Nations rejected the citizens' petition to have their city officially named as the Free Hanseatic City of Danzig (Freie Hansastadt Danzig). However, the League recognized them as citizens of Danzig with a separate Freistadt Danzig citizenship, and thus as no longer possessing German citizenship.

The strategic aim of Poland was to regain free access to the open sea, and the territory settlement given to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles was a good opportunity for this. The Polish government also hoped to return to the relationship Poland had with its main port of Danzig before 1772. However, at a crucial time of Polish-Soviet war, when the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw, Danzig workers went on strike to block delivery of ammunition to the Polish army. This move set both sides into the conflict that marks the history of the Free City of Danzig.

A customs union with Poland was created by the allied powers, which gave the Gdansk port of Westerplatte to the Polish republic as a Polish military transit depot. The separation of the Danzig port, post office and customs office under the treaty was said to be justified by Poland's need for direct access to the Baltic Sea. Poland then stationed small squad of troops at Westerplatte. Due to massive resentment by the German inhabitants of Danzig, the Poles, using large foreign investments, began building a large port in Gdynia, just 25 km away from Danzig . due to the Polish-German trade war of 1925–1934, Poland was more focused then ever in its history on international trade. For example, the new railway line was build to connect Silesia with the coast and the new tariffs made it very cheap to send goods through Polish ports rather then German ones. Gdynia became the biggest port on the Baltic sea, but Danzig also profited from the prosperity. Nevertheless, Poland frequently resorted to economical sanctions during conflicts with the authorities of the Free City, and Danzig suffered greatly as a result.

The strong economy of the late 1920s was not well-used by Danzig, as the leaders of the city were more interested in preparing the way for a future reunion with Germany than in developing better relations with Poland.

The Free City of Danzig (German Freie Stadt Danzig) issued its own stamps and currency (the Gulden). Many examples of stamps and coins, bearing the legend Freie Stadt Danzig, survive in collections. The general desire of the inhabitants was for an eventual reunion with Germany, and elections in the city generally gave success to nationalist elements. This culminated in the election of a Nazi Party government in Danzig's elections of May 1933, shortly after Hitler's accession to power in Germany.

German incorporation of Danzig was one of the nationalistic territorial claims that every government of the Weimar Republic had put on its agenda. When the Nazi government came to power in Germany in 1933, it had the government of Danzig stage a military incident in Danzig in 1934. Ultimately, though, Germany, which had not begun yet to openly rearm, decided to compromise rather than risk war with what was then a much larger Polish army.

A Polish-German non-aggression agreement was signed and the Free City's government was ordered by the Nazis to stop making problems between Poland and Danzig. Poland and Danzig entered a brief period of good economic cooperation and prosperity. Neverthless, a totalitarian society was being constructed, and being a member of minority groups — either Polish or Jewish — required stamina in the face of everyday acts of violence and persecutions.

In 1939 the Jewish community decided that all members should leave, not only Danzig, but the whole region, as they realised it would be soon in the hands of Nazis. This was successfully achieved.

World War II (1939–1945)

Following the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, Germany in October 1938 urged the free city's cession to Germany. Poland refused to accept this and was eventually backed in its stance by the governments of France and the United Kingdom, disturbed by the annexion of Bohemia and Moravia in March of 1939. On September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland. On September 2 Germany officially annexed the Free City of Danzig. Polish postmen defending the Polish Post Office were killed after they surrendered. Other Polish soldiers defending the Westerplatte stronghold surrendered after 7 days of fighting. The German commander returned the sword to the Polish commander for putting up a brave fight. In October 1939, Danzig, together with the rest of the Polish Corridor to the south and west, became the German Reichsgau (administrative district) of Danzig-West Prussia (Danzig-Westpreussen).

Poles as well as German dissidents were sent to concentration camps, mainly the neighbouring Stutthof, where 85,000 of locals perished. An estimate 60,000 members of the Polish (including many Kashubs) intelligentsia were killed in the Piasnica mass murder site.

At the beginning of 1945 Germany began to evacuate civilians from Danzig. Most of the German population fled the city, many by seaborne evacuation to Schleswig-Holstein. This happened during the winter, under heavy allied bombing and in constant danger of submarines.

On March 30, 1945 the Soviet Army seized Danzig. In the following days, Soviet soldiers had a completely free hand in the city. In Danzig there were scenes of brutal violence, rapes, murders, and robbery, and eventually the city was set on fire.

The official German history estimates that about 100,000 Danzigers — 40% of the city's pre-war population — lost their lives in the war, including the evacuation and Soviet capture of the city.

Post-WWII

Already before the end of World War II, the Yalta Conference had agreed to place Gdansk, under de facto Polish administration, and this decision was confirmed at the Potsdam Conference. A treaty between Poland and the German Democratic Republic in 1950 ceded Gdansk and other areas to Poland. However, due to the absence of a formal peace treaty and the powerful influence of the eastern refugee lobby in West Germany, the Federal Republic did not recognize the new border until the inception of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik in 1970. The borders were reaffirmed by a treaty with reunited Germany in 1990.

Following the war a Communist-led Polish administration was declared in Gdansk. Nevertheless, the city was seriously devastated.

After the war ended, nearly all citizens of Germany that returned and remained in the city were recognized as enemy aliens. Poles widely blamed the Danzigers for bringing about the Second World War.

Most of the Germans had to face special verification committees that had to judge their personal behaviour during the war. Many failed, even if their families' roots in Danzig/Gdansk went back many centuries, or they were of Kashubian descent, but had shown their support for Germany during WWII. The commitees are often criticised, since they were established by a communist government and their members were not always competent.

Later on, questions of citizenship were the subject of judicial process. Nevertheless, if somebody was granted Polish citizenship, he was not able to emigrate to Germany on his volition. After 1948, Stalin made the Polish government close the border for those who wanted to join their families in Germany. People of German origin were repressed and had to obtain special permissions for emigration.

In the whole process, most of the pre-war German citizens of Danzig fled to the Federal Republic.

New Polish residents were settled in Gdansk from other parts of Poland and from Polish-speaking areas east of the Curzon Line that were annexed by the Soviet Union after WWII. Many local Kasubs also moved into the city. The city was thus transformed from a city where German was the principal language — portrayed, for instance, in Danzig native Günter Grass's novels The Tin Drum and Dog Years — into a city were most people spoke Polish.

Eventually, Polish artisans restored much of the old city's architecture, 90 percent destroyed in the war, but removed nearly all German inscriptions. All German names of streets, buildings, shipyards and districts were changed to their Polish names, such as Długi Targ for Langemarkt (Long Market), the city's main pedestrian center.

Gdansk, once again Poland's principal port, was the scene of anti-government demonstrations which led to the downfall of Poland's communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka in December 1970, and ten years later was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement, whose opposition to the government led to the end of communist party rule (1989) and the election as president of Poland of its leader Lech Walesa. It remains today a major port and industrial city.

A list of the 173 mayors of the City of Gdansk/Danzig from 1347 to March 1945 was compiled by the current Gdansk city government and can be found on their recent website with the invitation for the "First World Gdańsk Reunion", which took place in May 2002.

On 10 May 2004, the Gdansk-Tricity international airport has been officialy renamed to Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport to commemorate famous Gdansk citizen Lech Walesa. This led to some controversy if this should be spelled Lech Walesa (without diacritics, but better recognizable in the world) or Lech Wałęsa (with Polish letters, but difficult to write and pronounced for foreigners.)

Dukes of Gdansk

• ca. 850-960 - local tribal dukes
• ca. 960 - Wislaw, duke of Gdansk, married to a Piast duchess
• ca. 1046 - Siemomysl, duke of Pomerania
• ca. 1060-1106 - Swietobor I, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1109-1121 Swietopelk I, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1155-1180 Subislaw I, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1180-1207 Sambor I, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1207-1217 Msciwoj I, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1217-1266 Swietopelk II the Great, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1266-1271 Warcislaw I, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1271-1294 Msciwoj II, duke of Gdansk Pomerania
• 1294-1296 Przemysl II, king of Poland and duke of Pomerania
• 1296-1299 Ladislaus I of Poland, duke of Poland, Cuiavia and Pomerania
• 1299-1305 Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, king of Bohemia and Poland
• 1305-1306 Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, king of Bohemia and Poland
• 1306-1308 Ladislaus I of Poland, duke of Poland, Cuiavia and Pomerania (crowned king in 1320)
• 1308-1343 Gdansk Pomerania held illegaly by the Teutonic Order, Polish kings Ladislaus I and Casimir III still the title lord of Pomerania
• 1343-1410 and 1411-1454 Gdansk Pomerania held legally by the Teutonic Order as a fief of Polish kings.

Famous people born in Danzig or Gdansk

• Joannes Dantiscus 1485, poet, church canon and bishop
• Bernhard von Reesen 1490
• Albrecht IV Giese 1524
• Anton van Obberghen, 1543, architect
• Anton Möller, 1563, painter
• Johannes Hevelius, astronomer, 1611
• Georg Daniel Schultz 1615
• Andreas Schlüter 1660
• Jacob Theodor Klein 1685
• Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736), physicist and engineer
• Daniel Gralath 1708
• Louise Adelgunde Gottsched 1713
• Daniel Chodowiecki 1726, painter
• Johann Wilhelm Archenholz 1741
• Georg Forster 1754
• Johanna Schopenhauer 1766
• Johannes Daniel Falk 1768
• Arthur Schopenhauer 1788
• Max Halbe 1865
• Günter Grass, b. 1927, writer and philosopher
• Wawrzyniec Samp, b. 1939, sculptor and grapic artist
• Ryszard Grodnicki, b. 1947, painter, photographer
• Krzysztof Kolberger, b. 1950, actor
• Jerzy Samp, b. 1951, writer and hostorian
• Paweł Huelle, b. 1957, writer and journalist
• Donald Tusk, b. 1957, politician, jornalist and historian
• Dariusz Michalczewski, b. 1968, boxer

Famous people living or working in Gdansk

• Lech Walesa, b. 1943, trade unions activist, politician, president of Poland (1990–1995)
• Jacek Kaczmarski, (1957-2004), songwriter, poet and author
• Lech Kaczynski, b. 1949, politician, Solidarity activist
• Aleksander Arendt, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Bernard Szczesny, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Jerzy Kiedrowski, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Stanislaw Pestka, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Izabella Trojanowska, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Szczepan Lewna, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Jozef Borzyszkowski, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Stanislaw Pestka, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Jan Wyrowinski, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association
• Brunon Synak, president of Kashubian-Pomeranian Association

Modern division into neighbourhoods

The City of Gdansk is divided into 30 "quarters":

File:Gw 2004 oiz ubt.jpeg