Mielec, Poland

Welcome to Mielec, the largest city and seat of Mielec County in south-eastern Poland. This industrial center is located in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship and boasts a population of 59,509 as of December 2021. Mielec is home to technical and IT schools, craft schools, and colleges offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees in several fields of study. Postgraduate studies are also available, including MBA programs. The city lies within the Special Economic Zone Euro-Park Mielec, providing access to Mielec Airport and railway. Mielec is also home to a recognizable soccer team, Stal Mielec, and the motto of the city is ‘Here wings spread!’ in reference to many successful domestic and foreign investments.

Mielec has a rich history dating back to the thirteenth century, with the first mention of a place called Mielec occurring in the 1229 bull of Pope Gregory IX. The city was founded on 17 March 1457, when King Casimir IV granted a charter to Jan Mielecki for the establishment of a city under the name of Nowy Targ. The Mielecki family owned the town of Mielec until the last of the Mieleckis died in 1771. Under their rule, there was intensive development of craft industries, with the first guild being founded in 1522. The next owners of Mielec were the Ossolinski and Morsztyn families, and in 1775, Anna Ossilińska married Jan Pieniążek, bringing as a dowry her share of part of the city. The last owner of Mielec was the Oborski family in 1891.

Mielec’s economy has been based for the last 70 years around a single industrial enterprise, which transformed the city and increased its population sixfold. This process began in the 1930s when Poland launched a significant expansion of its armaments industry, focused on building factories in the newly created Central Industrial Region. In 1936, a state-owned factory making airplane chassis was established on the outskirts of the town, an area then known as Cyranka. The factory started to build a new bomber, the PZL P-37 or Łoś. After the outbreak of World War II, the city and the airplane