Toruń

http://www.um.torun.pl/pl/
Population: 200000 habitants

Area: 115,71 km2

Country: Poland

Region: Kujawy-Pomerania province

President: Michal Zaleski

Torun is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Population (2006) was 207,190, which makes Torun the second as of October 21, 2007 biggest city of the Kujawy-Pomerania Province, after Bydgoszcz. The medieval old town, birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus, is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Previously the capital of Torun Voivodship (1975-98) and Pomeranian Voivodship (1921-39), since 1999 the self-government of the Kujawy-Pomerania Province has had its headquarters in the city (the government administration is located in Bydgoszcz). Torun forms, with Bydgoszcz, 45 km away, the Bydgoszcz-Torun urban agglomeration. In September 2004, Bydgoszcz Medical School, in Bydgoszcz, joined Torun's Nicolaus Copernicus University as its Collegium Medicum.

Torun has been listed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since 1997. The town contains many monuments from the Middle Ages, and also from the 20th century (200 military objects). The city is famous for having preserved almost intact its medieval spatial layout and many Gothic buildings, all built from brick, including monumental churches, the Town Hall and many burgher houses.

Thanks to numerous monuments of architecture Torun is visited by about 1.5 million tourists a year. This number may vary depending on source and means of calculation, nevertheless tourism is a quite important branch of local economy. Although such things like time spent in the city by individual tourists or number of hotels which can serve them are still considered as not satisfying.