List of cities and towns in Poland

All municipalities in Poland are governed regardless of their type under the mandatory mayor–council government system. Executive power in a rural gmina is exercised by a wójt, while the homologue in municipalities containing cities or towns is called accordingly either a city mayor (prezydent miasta) or a town mayor (burmistrz), all of them elected by a two-round direct election, while the town/city council is the legislative, budget-making and oversight body. Any local laws considered non-compliant with the national ones may be invalidated by the respective voivode, whose rulings may be appealed to an administrative court. Decisions in individual cases may in turn be appealed to quasi-judicial bodies named , their ruling subject to appeal to an administrative court. A town or city mayor may be scrutinized or denied funding for his/her projects by the council, but is not politically responsible to it and does not require its confidence to remain in office; therefore, cohabitation is not uncommon. A recall referendum may however be triggered either in respect to the wójt/town mayor/city mayor or to the municipal council through a petition supported by at least 1/10 of eligible voters, but the turnout in the recall referendum must be at least 3/5 of the number of people voting in the original election in order for the referendum to be valid and binding. In addition, elected bodies of any municipality may be suspended by the Prime Minister of Poland in case of persisting law transgressions or negligence, resulting in such case in the municipality being placed under receivership. In a city with powiat rights, the city mayor additionally has the powers and duties of a powiat executive board and a starosta, while the city council has the powers and duties of a powiat (county) council; both nevertheless being elected under the municipal election rules rather than those applicable to county elections. ==Cities==

{{Location map+ In spite of no linguistic distinction between a city and a town in the Polish language (both translated ), a city may be recognized among other Polish urban municipalities through being managed by a city mayor (, literally translated city president) instead of a town mayor () as the head of the city executive, thus being informally called miasto prezydenckie, with such privilege automatically awarded to municipalities either inhabited by more than 100,000 residents (currently 34) or those enjoying the status of a city with powiat rights (currently 66). As of 2026, all of the former group fit into the latter, though it was not always the case in the past. There is, however, a number of exemptions due to historic or political reasons, when a municipality meets neither of these two conditions but nevertheless has the city status, including the only 3 capitals of the former voivodeships of Poland (1975–1998) not meeting the abovementioned criteria, as well as 38 other municipalities which do not fit into any of the mentioned categories but have nevertheless been allowed to keep the earlier awarded status due to unspecified historical reasons. Among the 34 cities over 100,000, 18 are seats of voivode or voivodeship sejmik, thus carrying the informal designation of a voivodeship city. 11 of them are seats of an appeal court and other supra-voivodeship institutions. The 140 Polish towns or cities with a population above 25,000 belong to the following size ranges in terms of the number of inhabitants (cities with powiat rights are indicated with italics; the seats of either a voivode or a voivodeship legislature are marked in bold, the seats of an appeal court are marked with an asterisk*): • 1 city larger than 1,000,000: Warsaw* • 1 city from 750,000 to 1,000,000: Kraków* • 3 cities from 500,000 to 750,000: Wrocław*, Łódź*, Poznań* • 6 cities from 250,000 to 500,000: Gdańsk*, Szczecin*, Lublin*, Bydgoszcz, Białystok*, Katowice* • 25 cities from 100,000 to 250,000: Gdynia, Częstochowa, Rzeszów*, Radom, Toruń, Sosnowiec, Kielce, Gliwice, Olsztyn, Bielsko-Biała, Zabrze, Bytom, Zielona Góra, Rybnik, Ruda Śląska, Opole, Tychy, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Elbląg, Płock, Koszalin, Tarnów, Włocławek, Chorzów • 46 cities from 50,000 to 100,000: Wałbrzych, Kalisz, Legnica, Grudziądz, Jaworzno, Słupsk, Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Nowy Sącz, Jelenia Góra, Siedlce, Mysłowice, Konin, Piła, Piotrków Trybunalski, Inowrocław, Ostrów Wielkopolski, Suwałki, Lubin, Stargard, Gniezno, Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Siemianowice Śląskie, Głogów, Pabianice, Leszno, Żory, Zamość, Pruszków, Łomża, Ełk, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Chełm, Mielec, Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Przemyśl, Stalowa Wola, Tczew, Biała Podlaska, Bełchatów, Świdnica, Będzin, Zgierz, Piekary Śląskie, Legionowo • 57 cities from 25,000 to 50,000: Racibórz, Ostrołęka, Marki, Świętochłowice, Wejherowo, Zawiercie, Skierniewice, Starachowice, Wodzisław Śląski, Starogard Gdański, Puławy, Tarnobrzeg, Kołobrzeg, Krosno, Otwock, Radomsko, Skarżysko-Kamienna, Ciechanów, Kutno, Sieradz, Zduńska Wola, Świnoujście, Żyrardów, Bolesławiec, Nowa Sól, Knurów, Oświęcim, Sopot, Ostróda, Kraśnik, Mława, Dzierżoniów, Czeladź, Żywiec, Police, Myszków, Augustów, Reda, Zgorzelec, Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Kobyłka, Bochnia, Brodnica, Krotoszyn, Swarzędz, Wieliczka, Bielawa, Śrem, Giżycko, Łuków, Czerwionka-Leszczyny, Jarocin, Wyszków, Łowicz, Wągrowiec, Gorlice, Zakopane ==Principal metropolitan areas==

Only a single officially incorporated multi-purpose metropolitan union exists in Poland, the sui generis Metropolis GZM, established by a dedicated act of Parliament of Poland within the Silesian Voivodeship, currently composed of 41 contiguous municipalities, with some of them containing also rural areas. Its total population is 2,279,560. The metropolis largely coincides with the metropolitan area of the Katowice urban area, which is a part of the wider polycentric transnational Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area. A de facto metropolitan area is, however, also formed in some aspects by Warsaw metropolitan area, consisting of the capital city of Warsaw, a city with powiat rights, and the 9 neighbouring counties: Warsaw West County, Nowy Dwór County, Legionowo County, Wołomin County, Mińsk County, Otwock County, Piaseczno County, Pruszków County and Grodzisk County. Warsaw forms together with these counties a NUTS 2 area separate as an exception from the remainder of its home region, the Mazovian Voivodeship. In addition, identical area is policed by the Capital City Police Headquarters separate from the Mazovian Voivodeship Police Headquarters, with a status equal to that of voivodeship police headquarters. Attempts to establish a formally incorporated metropolitan union have been fiercely resisted by the citizens and the city mayor of Warsaw who have considered them a form of concealed gerrymandering, potentially leading to a political takeover of the city government through aiming to counterbalance the profoundly liberal city population with the conservative population of the neighbouring areas. A third widely known metropolitan area is the metropolitan area of Tricity in Pomeranian Voivodeship, urban area of which consists of the eponymous cities of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia. The designation has been used informally or semi-formally only. A strategic cooperation declaration, the Tricity Charter (Polish: Karta Trójmiasta), was signed by the three city mayors on 28 March 2007. The only incorporated common management authority in the Tricity metro is the Gdańsk Bay Public Transport Metropolitan Union () which is, despite the name, an inter-municipal union and not a metropolitan one. == Largest cities and towns by population ==

Below is the table of the most populated cities and towns in Poland. The table ranks cities by population based on data from the Central Statistical Office of Poland. == Cities alphabetically ==

A • Aleksandrów Kujawski • Aleksandrów Łódzki • Alwernia • Andrychów • Annopol • Augustów B Ba-Be Bi-Bl Bo-Br Bu-By C Ce-Ch Ci-Cz Ć • Ćmielów D Da-Do Dr-Dz E • Elbląg • Ełk F • Frampol • Frombork G Ga-Gn Go - Gó Gr-Gu H • Hajnówka • Halinów • Hel • Hrubieszów I J K Ka-Kc Ke-Kn Ko Kr-Kw L La-Li Lu-Lw Ł M Ma Mi Mo-My N Na-Ni No-Ny O Ob-Or Os-Oz P Pa-Pe Pi-Pl Pn-Po Pr-Py R Ra Re-Rz S Sa-Si Sk-Sl So St Su-Sy Sz Ś T U W Wa-Wę Wi-Wł Wo-Wy Z Ż ==Footnotes==