Zielona Góra

A farming settlement grew up in the valley of the Złota Łącza stream under Mieszko I. Henry the Bearded brought settlers in 1222 and the town received its charter in 1323. The church of St Hedwig was founded in 1294, and the first vineyards around the town are recorded in 1314. Cloth and wine made Grünberg prosperous: Sigismund the Old allowed its cloth to be sold across Poland in 1505, although the town passed to Bohemia in 1506 and to the Habsburgs in 1526.

The Thirty Years' War brought plundering and fires, the Counter-Reformation suppressed Lutheranism, and witch trials followed from 1640. Prussia took the town in 1742. Cloth-making moved to factory production in the early 19th century, and English industrialists bought mills in the 1870s and 1880s. Under Nazi rule the synagogue was destroyed in 1938, and during the Second World War the city held 42 forced-labour camps and three subcamps of Gross-Rosen.

The Red Army took the town with little fighting on 14 February 1945. The remaining German inhabitants were expelled, and Poles from the eastern lands annexed by the Soviet Union settled in their place. On 30 May 1960 the city saw the first large-scale protests against the communist authorities since the war, yet a Soviet song festival held from 1965 to 1989 earned it the nickname "Red Mountain". It was a voivodeship capital from 1950 to 1998, its population passed 100,000 in 1980, the University of Zielona Góra opened in 2001, and in 2015 the surrounding rural municipality was merged into the city.

Wine is the city's emblem. Zielona Góra is one of two places in Poland where wine grapes are grown, mainly for white wines, and at its peak some 2,500 vineyards lay within the town. Production dwindled in the communist era and the last wine factory closed in the 1990s, but small wineries have returned since 1990, and in 2015 a 33-hectare municipal vineyard at Zabór was the largest in Poland. The Winobranie, held since 1852, takes over the centre for nine days each September, and dozens of small Bacchus figures stand in the streets. Since 2010 St Urban has been the city's patron saint, and his relics are carried in procession during the festival.

The city's culture took shape after 1945, when settlers from all over Poland and the former eastern lands made their homes in a German town. It is known for cabaret, with a cabaret festival among its annual events, and for its Philharmonic, the Lubusz Theatre and the International Folklore Festival held during Winobranie. The singer Anna German gives her name to the amphitheatre in the park on the Piast Hills.

Sport is followed passionately. Speedway is the most popular, and Falubaz Zielona Góra, seven times Polish team champions, is among the best-supported clubs in the country. The basketball club Zastal has had a run of success in recent years, and Lechia plays football in the third tier.

About 139,000 people lived in Zielona Góra in mid-2025, making it the largest city in Lubusz Voivodeship. It shares the role of regional capital with Gorzów Wielkopolski: the elected regional assembly sits here, the government-appointed governor in Gorzów. Since the 2015 merger, green areas cover more than half of the city's area, and the rural district of Nowe Miasto is part of it.

The University of Zielona Góra, created from a polytechnic and a teacher-training college, is the largest higher-education institution in the region, and some 18,000 students live in the city. The economy is led by electronics and IT — including a maker of satellite television decoders — alongside the Luksusowa vodka distillery. An economic activity zone has operated since 2005 and an industrial and technology park since 2010. Registered unemployment was 2.5 per cent at the end of 2022. A transport interchange opened beside Zielona Góra Główna station in 2019, with city buses to every part of Zielona Góra.

Zielona Góra's table is built around its drinks. Local wineries make mostly white wine from vineyards replanted on the slopes around the city, and the Lubusz Wine and Honey Trail runs through the city. Luksusowa, a potato vodka made since 1928, has been distilled in the city since the borders moved west after the Second World War, and local beers are popular too.

Everyday menus offer Polish staples: pierogi, gołąbki — cabbage leaves stuffed with meat — kotlet schabowy, the breaded pork cutlet, and soups such as żurek, a sour rye soup, and rosół, a clear meat broth. A milk bar in front of the railway station serves inexpensive everyday meals.

The Old Market Square and the pedestrian street hold most of the cafés, pubs and restaurants, and the Palm House on Wine Hill has a restaurant under glass and a cellar selling only Lubusz wines. During the Winobranie the centre becomes one large market of food and wine stalls.