Pszczyna County
Pszczyna County (Polish: powiat pszczyński) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and only town is Pszczyna, which lies 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of the regional capital Katowice.
The county covers an area of 473.46 square kilometres (182.8 sq mi). As of 2006 its total population is 104,638, out of which the population of Pszczyna is 25,621 and the rural population is 79,017.
Neighbouring counties
Pszczyna County is bordered by Mikołów County, the city of Tychy and Bieruń-Lędziny County to the north, Oświęcim County to the east, Bielsko County to the south, Cieszyn County to the south-west, and the cities of Jastrzębie-Zdrój and Żory to the west.
Administrative division
The county is subdivided into six gminas (one urban-rural and five rural). These are listed in the following table, in descending order of population.
Pszczyna
Pszczyna [ˈpʂt͡ʂɨna] (English: Pless, German: Pleß) is a town in southern Poland with 25,415 inhabitants (2010) within the immediate gmina. There are 33,654 inhabitants within the area of the town itself and 50,121 in Pszczyna County of which Pszczyna is the capital. The town is located in the Silesian Voivodeship. It was a part of Katowice Voivodeship from 1975 until administrative reform in 1998.
Etymology
There are several different theories about the origins of the name "Pszczyna". Ezechiel Zivier (1868–1925) hypothesized that the land was first owned by Pleszko (alternatively Leszko, or possibly Leszek, Duke of Racibórz). Polish scholar Aleksander Brückner in turn, explained the name based on its old spelling Plszczyna, from the ancient Polish word pło or pleso meaning a lake or a place by the lake – thus suggesting that the name Plszczyna as well as its German equivalent Pleß had similar background. The version by Brückner, suggesting a lakeside rich with marshlands, based on a Proto-Slavic word plszczyna, is generally accepted in literature. Yet another version belongs to Prof. Jan Miodek from Wrocław University, who derived the name from the nearby Blszczyna river.
