The country's main tourist city, and third largest city (after Warsaw and Lodz). It lies in the south, 251 km (156 miles) south-west of the capital. Cracow grew where the Vistula River narrows between limestone hills, at the crossroads of major trade routes. It was Poland's capital from 1138 to 1596. Its university, the country's oldest, dates from 1364. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the Polish astronomer whose principle that the earth orbits the sun forms the basis of modern astronomy, was a student there from 1491 to 1494.
According to legend, Krak, a cobbler, founded Cracow and became its first prince after killing a virgin-devouring dragon living in Wawel Cave. Above, on Wawel Hill commanding the Vistula narrows, stand a royal castle and cathedral erected by King Casimir the Great (1330-70) on the remains of a 10th-century fort and church. The castle, rebuilt in the 16th century around an arcaded courtyard, has 71 restored rooms, and houses the world's only surviving 16th-century Arras tapestries.
The cathedral, former see of Cardinal Wojtyla (who became Pope John Paul II), contains the tombs of Polish kings, and those of St. Stanislaus, a former bishop and the country's patron saint, and the nationalist Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1766-1817), who led an abortive rising against occupying Russians in 1793.
The central market square, in the old part of the city north of Wawel Hill, is dominated by the 16th-century Cloth Hall, the Town Hall tower (1383), and the Church of the Virgin Mary. The church has an altarpiece carved of linden wood in the 15th century. Every hour (and at noon on Polish radio), a bugle call is sounded from the church tower. The call is always broken off in mid-blast - a custom commemorating a bugler whose throat was pierced by a Tatar arrow in 1241 while he was trying to alert the city to a Tatar attack.
Cracow' s main industries today include steel (at nearby NOWA HUTA), chemicals, printing and ceramics. Each June the International Short Films and Polish Film Festivals are held in the city, along with an international exhibition of graphic arts and a folk arts fair.
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