Archaeologists have demonstrated that the Lviv area was settled by the fifth century, with the
gord at
Chernecha Hora-Voznesensk Street in
Lychakivskyi District attributed to
White Croats. The city of Lviv was founded in 1250 by King
Daniel of Galicia in honour of his son
Lev as Lvihorod which is consistent with names of other Ukrainian cities, such as
Myrhorod,
Sharhorod,
Novhorod,
Bilhorod,
Horodyshche, and
Horodok. Earlier there was a settlement in the form of a borough with a characteristic layout element—an elongated market square. Daniel's foundation of the stronghold was its next reconstruction after the
Batu Khan invasion of 1240. Lviv was
invaded by the
Mongols in 1261. Various sources relate the events, which range from the destruction of the castle to a complete razing of the town. All sources agree that it was on the orders of the Mongol general
Burundai. The
Shevchenko Scientific Society says that Burundai issued the order to raze the city. The
Galician-Volhynian chronicle states that in 1261 "Said Buronda to Vasylko: 'Since you are at peace with me then raze all your castles'". Basil Dmytryshyn states that the order was implied to be the fortifications as a whole: "If you wish to have peace with me, then destroy [all fortifications of] your towns". After Daniel's death, King Lev rebuilt the town around 1270, choosing Lviv as his residence, Around 1280
Armenians lived in
Galicia and were mainly based in Lviv where they had their own
archbishop. In the 13th and early 14th centuries, Lviv was largely a wooden city, except for its several
Galician-style stone churches. Some of them, like the Church of Saint Nicholas, have survived, although in a thoroughly rebuilt form. The town was inherited by the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1340 and ruled by
voivode Dmytro Dedko, the favourite of the Lithuanian prince
Liubartas, until 1349. In the 13th and 14th centuries the city and region was a destination of 50,000 Armenians fleeing from the
Saljuq and Mongol invasions of Armenia.
Galicia–Volhynia Wars During the
wars over the succession of Galicia-Volhynia Principality in 1339 King
Casimir III of Poland undertook an expedition and captured the city in 1340, burning down the
old princely castle. The
Lithuanians ravaged Lviv land in 1351 during the
Halych-Volhyn Wars with Lviv being plundered and destroyed by duke
Liubartas in 1353. Casimir built a new city center (or founded a new town) in a basin, surrounded it by walls, and replaced the wooden palace by masonry castle – one of the two built by him. The old (Ruthenian) settlement, after it had been rebuilt, became known as the Krakovian Suburb in reference to the city of
Kraków.
Kingdom of Poland built in 1362 by
Casimir III of Poland (engraving by A. Gogenberg, 17th century) In 1349, the
Kingdom of Ruthenia with its capital Lviv was annexed by the
Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The kingdom was transformed into the Ruthenian domain of the Crown with Lwów as the capital. On 17 June 1356 King
Casimir III the Great moved the city to a new location and granted it
Magdeburg rights, which implied that all city matters were to be resolved by a council elected by the wealthy citizens. In 1362, the
High Castle was built with stone. In 1358, the city became a seat of
Roman Catholic Archdiocese, which initiated the spread of
Latin Church onto the Ruthenian lands. After Casimir had died in 1370, he was succeeded as king of Poland by his nephew, King
Louis I of Hungary, who in 1372 put Lwów together with the region of
Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia under the administration of his relative
Vladislaus II of Opole, Duke of Opole. In 1356, the Armenian diocese was founded centered at the
Armenian Cathedral. Lwów was one of two main cultural and religious centers of
Armenians in Poland alongside
Kamieniec Podolski. In the
early modern period, it also became one of the largest concentrations of
Scots and
Italians in Poland. In 1412, the local
archdiocese has developed into the
Roman Catholic Metropolis, which since 1375 as
diocese had been in
Halych. During the 17th century, it was the second largest city of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with a population of about 30,000. In 1572, one of the first publishers of books in what is now Ukraine,
Ivan Fedorov, a graduate of the
University of Kraków, settled here for a brief period. The city became a significant centre for
Eastern Orthodoxy with the establishment of
an Orthodox brotherhood, a Greek-Slavonic school, and a printer which published the first full versions of the Bible in
Church Slavonic in 1580. A
Jesuit Collegium was founded in 1608, and on 20 January 1661 King
John II Casimir of Poland issued a decree granting it "the honour of the academy and the title of the university". The 17th century brought invading armies of
Swedes,
Hungarians,
Turks,
Russians and
Cossacks The
plague of the early 18th century caused the death of about 10,000 inhabitants (40% of the city's population).
Habsburg Empire In 1772, following the
First Partition of Poland, the region was annexed by the
Habsburg monarchy to the
Austrian Partition. Known in German as
Lemberg, the city became the capital of the
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Lemberg grew dramatically during the 19th century, increasing in population from approximately 30,000 at the time of the Austrian annexation in 1772, to 196,000 by 1910 and to 212,000 three years later; rapid population growth brought about an increase in urban squalor and
poverty in Austrian Galicia. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries a large influx of Austrians and German-speaking Czech bureaucrats gave the city a character that by the 1840s was quite Austrian, in its orderliness and in the appearance and popularity of Austrian coffeehouses. During Habsburg rule, Lviv became one of the most important Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish cultural centres. In Lviv, according to the Austrian census of 1910, which listed religion and language, 51% of the city's population was
Roman Catholics, 28% Jews, and 19% belonged to the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Linguistically, 86% of the city's population used the
Polish language and 11% preferred
Ruthenian. During the 19th century, the Austrian administration attempted to
Germanise the city's educational and governmental institutions. A number of cultural organisations which did not have a pro-German orientation were closed. After the
revolutions of 1848, the language of instruction at the university shifted from German to include Ukrainian and Polish. Around that time, a certain
sociolect developed in the city known as the
Lwów dialect. Considered to be a type of Polish dialect, it draws its roots from a number of other languages besides Polish. In 1853,
kerosene lamps as
street lighting were introduced by
Ignacy Łukasiewicz and Jan Zeh. Then in 1858, these were updated to
gas lamps, and in 1900 to
electric ones. Theatre in 1900 After the so-called "
Ausgleich" of February 1867, the
Austrian Empire was reformed into a dualist
Austria-Hungary and a slow yet steady process of liberalisation of Austrian rule in Galicia started. From 1873, Galicia was
de facto an autonomous province of
Austria-Hungary, with Polish and
Ruthenian as official languages.
Germanisation was halted and censorship lifted as well.
Galicia was subject to the Austrian part of the Dual Monarchy, but the
Galician Sejm and provincial administration, both established in Lviv, had extensive privileges and prerogatives, especially in education, culture, and local affairs. In 1894, the
General National Exhibition was held in Lviv. The city started to grow rapidly, becoming the fourth largest in Austria-Hungary, according to the census of 1910. Multiple
Belle Époque public edifices and tenement houses were erected, with a number of the buildings from the Austrian period, such as the
Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, built in the
Viennese neo-Renaissance style. (until 1918), since 1920 the
Jan Kazimierz University At that time, Lviv was home to a number of renowned Polish-language institutions, such as the
Ossolineum, with the second-largest collection of Polish books in the world, the
Polish Academy of Arts, the
National Museum (since 1908), the Historical Museum of the City of Lwów (since 1891), the
Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists, the
Polish Historical Society,
Lwów University, with Polish as the official language since 1882, the
Lwów Scientific Society, the
Lwów Art Gallery, the
Polish Theatre, and the
Polish Archdiocese. Furthermore, Lviv was the centre of a number of Polish independence organisations. In June 1908,
Józef Piłsudski,
Władysław Sikorski and
Kazimierz Sosnkowski founded the
Union of Active Struggle in the city. Two years later, the paramilitary organisation, called the
Riflemen's Association, was also founded in the city by Polish activists. At the same time, Lviv became the city where famous Ukrainian writers (such as
Ivan Franko,
Panteleimon Kulish and
Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky) published their work. It was a centre of Ukrainian cultural revival. The city also housed the largest and most influential Ukrainian institutions in the world, including the
Prosvita society dedicated to spreading literacy in the Ukrainian language, the
Shevchenko Scientific Society, the Dniester Insurance Company and base of the
Ukrainian cooperative movement, and it served as the seat of the
Ukrainian Catholic Church. However, the Polish-dominated city council blocked Ukrainian attempts to create visible monuments for their own. The most important streets had names referring to Polish history and literature, and only minor roads referred to Ukrainians. Lviv was also a major centre of Jewish culture, in particular as a centre of the
Yiddish language, and was the home of the world's first Yiddish-language daily newspaper, the
Lemberger Togblat, established in 1904.
World War I In the
Battle of Galicia at the early stages of the
First World War, Lviv was captured by the
Russian army in September 1914 following the
Battle of Gnila Lipa. The Lemberg Fortress fell on 3 September. The historian
Pál Kelemen provided a first-hand account of the chaotic evacuation of the city by the
Austro-Hungarian Army and civilians alike. The town was retaken by
Austria-Hungary in June of the following year during the
Gorlice–Tarnów offensive. Lviv and its population, therefore, suffered greatly during the First World War as many of the offensives were fought across its local geography causing significant
collateral damage and disruption.
Polish–Ukrainian War After the
collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of the First World War, Lviv became an arena of battle between the local Polish population and the
Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Both nations perceived the city as an integral part of their new statehoods which at that time were forming in the former Austrian territories. On the night of 31 October – 1 November 1918 the
Western Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed with Lviv as its capital. 2,300 Ukrainian soldiers from the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (Sichovi Striltsi), which had previously been a corps in the Austrian Army, made an attempt to take over Lviv. The city's Polish majority opposed the Ukrainian declaration and began to fight against the Ukrainian troops. During this combat an important role was taken by young Polish city defenders called
Lwów Eaglets. The Ukrainian forces withdrew outside Lwów's confines by 21 November 1918, after which elements of Polish soldiers began to loot and burn much of the Jewish and Ukrainian quarters of the city, killing approximately 340 civilians (see:
Lwów pogrom). The pogromists were tried by Polish authorities and three were executed. The retreating Ukrainian forces besieged the city. The Sich riflemen reformed into the
Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA). The Polish forces aided from central Poland, including
General Haller's
Blue Army, equipped by the French, relieved the besieged city in May 1919 forcing the UHA to the east. Despite
Entente mediation attempts to cease hostilities and reach a compromise between belligerents the
Polish–Ukrainian War continued until July 1919 when the last UHA forces withdrew east of the
River Zbruch. The border on the River Zbruch was confirmed at the
Treaty of Warsaw, when in April 1920 Field
Marshal Piłsudski signed an agreement with
Symon Petlura where it was agreed that in exchange for military support against
the Bolsheviks the
Ukrainian People's Republic renounced its claims to the territories of Eastern Galicia. In August 1920, Lviv was attacked by the
Red Army under the command of
Aleksandr Yegorov and
Stalin during the
Polish–Soviet War but
the city repelled the attack. For the courage of its inhabitants Lviv was awarded the
Virtuti Militari cross by Józef Piłsudski on 22 November 1920. On 23 February 1921, the council of the
League of Nations declared that Galicia (including the city) lay outside the territory of Poland and that Poland did not have the mandate to establish administrative control in that country, and that Poland was merely the occupying military power of Galicia (as a whole On 14 March 1923, the Council of Ambassadors decided that Galicia would be incorporated into Poland "whereas it is recognised by Poland that ethnographical conditions necessitate an autonomous regime in the
Eastern part of Galicia." This provision was never honoured by the
interwar Polish government. After 1923, the region was internationally recognized as part of the Polish state.
Interwar period During the
interwar period Lwów was the
Second Polish Republic's third-most populous city (following
Warsaw and
Łódź), and it became the seat of the
Lwów Voivodeship. Following Warsaw, Lwów was the second most important cultural and academic centre of interwar Poland. For example, in 1920 Professor
Rudolf Weigl of Lwów University developed a
vaccine against
typhus fever. Furthermore, the geographic location of Lwów gave it an important role in stimulating international trade and fostering the city's and Poland's economic development. A major
trade fair named
Targi Wschodnie was established in 1921. In the academic year 1937–1938, there were 9,100 students attending five institutions of higher education, including
Lwów University as well as the
Polytechnic. ''), main entrance. While about two-thirds of the city's inhabitants were Poles, some of whom spoke the characteristic
Lwów dialect, the eastern part of the Lwów Voivodeship had a relative
Ukrainian majority in most of its rural areas. Polish authorities were obliged through international agreements to provide
Eastern Galicia with autonomy (including the creation of a separate Ukrainian university in Lwów), and even though a bill was enacted the
Polish Sejm in September 1922, this was not fulfilled. The Polish government discontinued multiple Ukrainian schools which functioned during the Austrian rule, and closed down Ukrainian departments at the University of Lwów with the exception of one. Prewar Lwów also had a large and thriving
Jewish community, which constituted about a quarter of the population, but were accused of having collaborated with the Ukrainians. Unlike in Austrian times, when the size and number of public parades or other cultural expressions corresponded to each cultural group's relative population, the Polish government emphasised the Polish nature of the city and limited public displays of
Jewish and
Ukrainian culture. Military parades and commemorations of battles at particular streets within the city, all celebrating the Polish forces who fought against the Ukrainians in 1918, became frequent,
World War II Soviet occupation and incorporation Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and by 14 September Lwów was completely encircled by
German Army units. Subsequently, the
Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. On 22 September 1939 Lwów capitulated to the
Red Army. The
USSR annexed the eastern half of the Second Polish Republic with Ukrainian and Belarusian populations. The city became the capital of the newly formed
Lviv Oblast. The Soviets reopened uni-lingual Ukrainian schools, which had been discontinued by the Polish government. The only change over imposed by the Soviets was the language of instruction, with the actual net loss of about 1,000 schools in short order. Ukrainian was made compulsory in the
University of Lviv with almost all its books in Polish. It became thoroughly
Ukrainized and was renamed after Ukrainian writer
Ivan Franko. Polish academics were laid off. Soviet rule turned out to be much more oppressive than Polish rule; the rich world of Ukrainian publications in Polish Lwów, for instance, was gone in Soviet Lviv, and multiple journalism jobs were lost with it.
German occupation On 22 June 1941,
Nazi Germany and several of its
allies invaded the USSR. In the initial stage of
Operation Barbarossa (30 June 1941) Lviv was taken by the Germans. The evacuating Soviets
killed most of the prison population, with arriving
Wehrmacht forces easily discovering evidence of the Soviet mass murders in the city committed by the
NKVD and
NKGB. The German administration falsely blamed the massacres on Jews, contributing to the
start of pogroms against the city's Jewish community. On 30 June 1941
Yaroslav Stetsko proclaimed in Lviv the Government of an independent Ukrainian state allied with Nazi Germany. This was done without preapproval from the Germans and after 15 September 1941, the organisers were arrested. , erected in 1992 on Chornovola Street. The inscription reads "remember and keep in your heart". The
Sikorski–Mayski Agreement signed in London on 30 July 1941 between the
Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet government invalidated the
September 1939 Soviet-German partition of Poland, as the Soviets declared it null and void. Meanwhile, German-occupied Eastern Galicia at the beginning of August 1941 was incorporated into the
General Government as
Distrikt Galizien with Lviv as the district's capital. German policy towards the Polish population in this area was as harsh as in the rest of the General Government. During the occupation of the city, the Germans committed multiple atrocities, including the
killing of Polish university professors in 1941. German Nazis viewed the Ukrainian Galicians, former inhabitants of Austrian Crown Land, as more
aryanised and civilised than the Ukrainian population living in the territories belonging to the
USSR before 1939. As a result, they escaped the full extent of German acts in comparison to Ukrainians who lived to the east, in the German-occupied
Soviet Ukraine turned into the
Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The majority of these Jews were either killed within the city or deported to
Belzec extermination camp. In the summer of 1943, on the orders of
Heinrich Himmler,
SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel was tasked with the destruction of any evidence of Nazi mass murders in the Lviv area. On 15 June Blobel, using forced labourers from Janowska, dug up a number of mass graves and incinerated the remains. Later, on 19 November 1943, inmates at Janowska staged an uprising and attempted a mass escape. A few succeeded, but most were recaptured and killed. The
SS staff and their local auxiliaries then, at the time of the Janowska camp's liquidation, murdered at least 6,000 more inmates, as well as the
Jews in other forced labour camps in Galicia. By the end of the war, the Jewish population of the city was virtually eliminated, with only around 200 to 800 survivors remaining.
Soviet re-occupation After the successful
Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive of July 1944, the Soviet
3rd Guards Tank Army captured Lwów on 27 July 1944, with significant cooperation from the local Polish resistance. Soon thereafter, the local commanders of Polish
Armia Krajowa were invited to a meeting with the commanders of the Red Army. During the meeting, they were arrested, as it turned out to be a trap set by the Soviet NKVD. Later, in the winter and spring of 1945, the local NKVD continued to arrest and harass Poles in Lwów (which according to Soviet sources on 1 October 1944 still had a clear Polish majority of 66.7%) in an attempt to encourage their emigration from the city. Those arrested were released only after they had signed papers in which they agreed to emigrate to Poland, which postwar borders were
to be shifted westwards in accordance with the
Yalta Conference settlements. In Yalta, despite Polish objections, the Allied leaders,
Joseph Stalin,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Winston Churchill decided that Lwów should remain within the borders of the Soviet Union. Roosevelt wanted Poland to have Lwów and the surrounding
oilfields, but Stalin refused to allow it. was signed in Moscow between the
government of the Soviet Union and the
Provisional Government of National Unity installed by the Soviets in Poland. In the treaty, Polish authorities formally
ceded the prewar eastern part of the country to the Soviet Union, agreeing to the Polish-Soviet border to be drawn according to the
Curzon Line. Consequently, the agreement was
ratified on 5 February 1946.
Soviet era In February 1946, Lviv became a part of the Soviet Union. It is estimated that from 100,000 to 140,000 Poles were resettled from the city into the so-called
Recovered Territories as a part of
postwar population transfers, many of them to the area of newly acquired
Wrocław, formerly the German city of Breslau. Poles who stayed in Lviv later formed the
Association of Polish Culture of the Lviv Land. In March 1946 Lviv became the site of a
Church synod organized under the pressure of
KGB, which formally dissolved the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by attaching its parishes to the
Russian Orthodox Church. According to various estimates, Lviv lost between 80% and 90% of its prewar population. Expulsion of the Polish population and
the Holocaust together with migration from
Ukrainian-speaking surrounding areas (including forcibly resettled from the territories which, after the war, became part of the Polish People's Republic), as well as from other parts of the Soviet Union, altered the ethnic composition of the city. Immigration from Russia and Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine was encouraged, and during the 1950s ethnic
Russians comprised almost a third of Lviv's population. During the same period, 28,000 Jews resided in the city, most of them being Russian-speaking immigrants from other parts of the Soviet Union. On 8 September 1956 the population of Lviv reached the number of 400,000 inhabitants. Due to the development of industrial enterprises in old city quarters, local authorities introduced measures against
noise pollution. At the same time, until 1958 Lviv continued to serve as a transit point for heavy military equipment. In 1958 a house in one of the city's streets collapsed due to the movement of
self-propelled artillery in a nearby street. As a result, the transport of military hardware through the old town quarters was outlawed, and the
division stationed in Lviv was transferred to
Yavoriv. During the 1960s, inhabitants of Lviv and the surrounding region benefitted from their access to
Polish television and
radio, as well as press publications from fellow
Warsaw Pact countries. Many migrants from Ukrainian villages, who settled in the city during that time, had relatives abroad and could engage in correspondence across the
Iron Curtain. In order to combat "
bourgeois nationalism", Soviet authorities outlawed the combination of
blue and yellow in printed production and media. In order to
combat reigion, the regime closed down Lviv's Dominican Cathedral and organized a museum of
atheism in its building. Despite government pressure, Lviv's inhabitants continued to follow religious traditions, with many districts organizing
vertep performances. During the 1960s Lviv also developed its own youth
subcultures, which formed under the influence of Western music. During the 1970s the policies of
Ukrainian Soviet leadership under
Volodymyr Shcherbytsky resulted in a new wave of
Russification. Many inscriptions and advertisements in Lviv's streets and in public transport were now written in Russian language. Meanwhile the economic situation worsened, with numerous goods
disappearing form shops by the middle part of the decade. By the end of 1970s
inflation became a major concern. At the same time, the city's trade network continued to expand, with more than 200 shops being built. New cultural trends continued to influence Lviv's population, and in 1979 two cult locations appeared in the city: youth palace "Romantyk", which became popular due to its
disco, and the "Virmenka"
coffee house, which became a gathering place for local
bohéme. The 1970s saw the rise of the
hippie movement in Lviv. In 1975-1977 the garden of the local
Carmelite Monastery became a centre of gatherings for
nonconformist youth from various parts of the Soviet Union. Despite the conditions of
Soviet Russification, Lviv became a major centre of the
dissident movement. Starting from
1972, many of Lviv's dissident activists were arrested and held in the infamous
Prison on Łącki Street.
Independent Ukraine The citizens of Lviv strongly supported
Viktor Yushchenko during the
2004 Ukrainian presidential election and played a key role in the
Orange Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people would gather in freezing temperatures to demonstrate for the Orange camp. Acts of
civil disobedience forced the head of the local police to resign and the local assembly issued a resolution refusing to accept the fraudulent first official results. Lviv remains today one of the main centres of Ukrainian culture and the origin of much of the nation's political class. In support of the
Euromaidan movement, Lviv's executive committee declared itself independent of the rule of President
Viktor Yanukovych on 19 February 2014. In 2019, the citizens of Lviv strongly supported
Petro Poroshenko over
Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the
2019 Ukrainian presidential election. The percentage of votes counted for Poroshenko was more than 90%. Despite this level of support in Lviv, he lost the national vote. Until 18 July 2020, Lviv was incorporated as a
city of oblast significance and the center of
Lviv Municipality. The municipality was abolished in July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Lviv Oblast to seven. The area of Lviv Municipality was merged into the newly established Lviv Raion.
Russo-Ukrainian War 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine In February 2022, after the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lviv became the nation's
de facto western capital as some embassies, government agencies, and media organizations were relocated from
Kyiv due to the direct military threat to the capital. Lviv also became a safe haven for the Ukrainians fleeing other parts of the country affected by the invasion, their number exceeding 200,000 by 18 March 2022. A number of them used the city as a stopping point on their way to Poland. Lviv and the larger region around it also served as crucial arms and humanitarian supply route. During the course of the war, the area in and around Lviv has been struck by Russian missile attacks.
Yavoriv military training base was struck on 13 March 2022, the Lviv State Aircraft Repair Plant near the
Lviv Danylo Halytskyi International Airport on 18 March 2022, On 18 April 2022, the city was hit by five missile strikes, killing seven civilians and wounding 11, according to mayor
Andriy Sadovyi. Regional governor Maksym Kozystkiy said that the targets were military factories and a tyre shop. A hotel housing evacuees was also hit, damaging its windows. The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed that all locations were struck by Russian missiles during the night of 18 April were military targets. Lviv was targeted during the
10 October 2022 missile strikes on Ukraine, resulting in a city-wide blackout. On 11 October 2022, Sadovyi announced that the city was hit by a missile strike, resulting in a power outage and water supply shortage. On October 5, 2025, the Russian on Lviv was the largest of the war in the Lviv region, said governor Maksym Kozytskyi, adding it involved 140 drones and 23 missiles. 5 civilians were killed and dozens were injured. On the night of 8 January 2026, Russian forces launched an
Oreshnik missile from the
Kapustin Yar test site towards Lviv. It was the first time Lviv was struck by an
Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) in the
Russo-Ukraine War. ==Geography==