Łódź, city, capital ofŁódzkiewojewództwo (province), centralPoland. It lies on the northwestern edge of the Łódź Highlands, on thewatershed of theVistula andOder rivers, 81 miles (130 km) southwest ofWarsaw.

Łódź is mentioned in 14th-century records as a village. It acquired municipal rights in 1798, but it remained an insignificant settlement that had only 799 inhabitants by 1820. That year theCongress Kingdom of Poland decided to make it a center for thetextile industry and invited foreign weavers and artisans to settle there. Congress Poland was ruled byRussia, and after customs barriers between Russia and Congress Poland were lifted in 1850, a great market for Łódź’s manufactures opened in theRussian Empire. By the end of the 19th century, Łódź had become the leading center in Poland for the production of cotton textiles. Its other industries included the processing of wool, silk, jute, hemp, and leather and the manufacture of clothing, metals, chemicals, and paper. The city’s industrial might gained it the nickname “the Polish Manchester.” The town’s rapid expansion resulted in a population of 500,000 inhabitants by 1913.

When Łódź became part of newly independent Poland afterWorld War I, it lost its large Russian market. The city survived German occupation duringWorld War II with relatively little damage, and its textile mills and other plants were reactivated after 1945. TheNazi occupiers interned the sizable Jewish population in aghetto in the northern part of the city, where they were put intoforced labor and later deported toextermination camps.

Łódź is the country’s third largest city and remains a major center of Poland’s textile industry, producing a large portion of the nation’s cotton goods as well as processing wool, silk, and artificial fibers. Because it did not develop extensively until the late 19th century, Łódź has a modern industrial appearance and very few distinguished or attractive buildings. During its rapid territorial expansion Łódź absorbed nearby villages andsuburbs, giving the city an unplanned and somewhat chaotic layout; some districts are a maze of factories, apartment blocks, former mansions of factory owners, and workers’ cottages.

Łódź is an important railway junction on the Warsaw-Wrocław railline. A notable educational center, Łódź is home to institutions ofhigher education and several museums, music centers, and theaters. The Museum of Modern Art contains one of the finest collections of 20th-century European art in Poland, and the Museum of Textiles occupies one of the city’s 19th-century mills. Łódź is also the center of the Polish film industry and of a flourishing artcommunity. The State Film, Television, and Theater School has graduated notable filmmakers such asAndrzej Wajda andRoman Polanski. Łódź is the birthplace of several notable artists, including pianistArtur Rubinstein, novelistJerzy Kosinski, director-screenwriter Jerzy Skolimowski, and poetJulian Tuwim, who helped found the 20th-century group of Polish poets known asSkamander. Pop. (2021) 670,642.