Kcynia is a town located within a distance of 40km from Bydgoszcz and 80km north-east of Poznań, in the northern part of the Gniezno Lake District , at the very top of the picturesque moraine hill that goes up 136m above sea level.
The town used to be a historic capital of the region of Pałuki – a cultural region located within the areas of the Province of Kujawsko-Pomorskie and Greater Poland, just north of Gniezno. The landscape of the region of Pałuki is exceptionally beautiful and picturesque, which it owns to being a post-glacial region where almost 100 lakes flood.
In 1262, Duke Bolesław the Pious granted a foundation charter to Kcynia, under the German law, based on the charters granted to the cities of Poznań and Gniezno. It marked the very first urban charter in the region of Pałuki and one of the first foundation charters within the territory of what is today the Province of Kujawsko-Pomorskie. In Late Middle Ages, Kcynia was a relatively grand town surrounded by defensive walls, with a castle within them. Up until the period of Partitions, Kcynia was the capital of the district of Kcynia, which corresponds to the today’s territory of the region of Pałuki.
There is a number of unique historic monuments still preserved in the town, such as the late baroque monastic complex attached to a Carmelite Church, erected in the years 1778-1787, or the late Gothic St. Michael Parish Church built in 1631. Furthermore, the town is also home to a neoclassical estate built in the first half of the 19th Century, surrounded by a little park. The buildings we can see in the town were mostly built in the 19th and 20th Centuries, with the exception of the two late baroque houses located near the market square.
Kcynia was also the place of birth for an extraordinary Polish scientist, chemist, and metallurgist, who invented a method of obtaining silicon single crystals, which is referred to as the Czochralski method and used to this very day Thanks to the method, we can today operate such devices as a computer mouse or a phone.
Do you want to visit this place?
Use Google navigation
