Lviv (Ukrainian: Львів [ˈlʲʋʲiu̯] ⓘ; Polish: Lwów; German: Lemberg) is the sixth-largest city in Ukraine, as well as the largest city in the western part of the country, with a population of 723,403 (2025 estimate). It serves as the administrative center of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centers of Ukraine. The city also hosts the administration of Lviv urban hromada. Lviv was named after Leo I of Galicia, the eldest son of Daniel, King of Ruthenia. During its history the city has had several names.
In the 14th century, Lviv emerged as the heart of the historical regions of Red Ruthenia and Galicia, superseding other historic cities such as Halych, Chełm, Belz, and Przemyśl. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia from 1272 to 1340, when it went to King Casimir III the Great of Poland in a war of succession. In 1356, Casimir the Great granted it town rights. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg semi-autonomous Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Between 1918 and 1939, the city was the heart of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. During this period the city's culture and industry flourished, as did its academic institutions. After the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Lwów was annexed by the Soviet Union. It survived Soviet and German occupations during World War II largely unscathed. In February 1946, the city became a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, having lost an estimated 80-90% of its prewar population. In 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Lviv stayed part of Ukraine.
Lviv has a number of industries and institutions of higher education, such as Lviv University and Lviv Polytechnic. The city is also the home of multiple cultural institutions, including the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Lviv Philharmonic and the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet. The historical heart of the city has cobblestone streets and an assortment of Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicist and Art Nouveau architecture; it is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is listed as an endangered site due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Names and symbols
The city of Lviv has been known by multiple names. These include, amongst others: Ukrainian: Львів (Lʹviv) [ˈlʲʋʲiu̯] ⓘ; Polish: Lwów [ˈlvuf] ⓘ; German: Lwiw [l(ə)ˈviːf] ⓘ and Lemberg [ˈlɛmbɛʁk] ⓘ; Yiddish: לעמבעריק (Lemberik) [ˈlɛmbɛrɪk]; Russian: Львов (Lʹvov) [ˈlʲvof]; Belarusian: Львоў (Lʹvoŭ) [ˈlʲvou̯]; Armenian: Լվով (Lvov) [ˈlvɔv] and Իլով (Ilov) [iˈlov]; Hungarian: Ilyvó [ˈijvoː], and Latin: Leopolis.
The coat of arms, and the logo and banner of the Lviv City Council are the officially approved symbols of Lviv. The names or images of architectural and historical monuments are also considered symbols of the city. The city's modern coat of arms is based on that of a mid-14th-century seal. The modern seal depicts a stone gate with three towers, and in the opening of the gate walks a golden lion. Lviv's large coat of arms is a shield, with the coat of arms of the city, crowned with a silver crown with three edges, held by a lion and an ancient warrior.
Lviv's flag is a blue square banner with an image of the city emblem and with yellow and blue triangles at the edges. Lviv's logo is an image of five colourful towers in Lviv and the slogan "Lviv – open to the world" under them. The Latin phrase Semper fidelis ('Always faithful') was used as a motto on the former coat of arms of 1936–1939 but was no longer used after the Second World War.
History
Archaeologists have demonstrated that the Lviv area was settled by the fifth century, with the gord at Chernecha Hora-Novoznesenska Street in Lychakivskyi District attributed to White Croats. Following the Batu Khan invasion of 1240, King Daniel of Galicia reconstructed the stronghold. A settlement subsequently developed in the form of a borough, distinguished by an elongated market square. The city of Lviv was founded in 1250 by Daniel and named in honour of his son Lev as Lvihorod which is consistent with names of other Ukrainian cities, such as Myrhorod, Sharhorod, Novhorod, Bilhorod, Horodyshche, and Horodok. Daniel invited German merchants and artisans, primarily from Poland and Silesia, to settle in Lviv during the mid-13th century.
Lviv was invaded by the Mongols in 1261. Various sources relate the events, which range from the destruction of the castle to a complete razing of the town. All sources agree that it was on the orders of the Mongol general Burundai. The Shevchenko Scientific Society says that Burundai issued the order to raze the city. The Galician-Volhynian chronicle states that in 1261 "Said Buronda to Vasylko: 'Since you are at peace with me then raze all your castles'". Basil Dmytryshyn states that the order was implied to be the fortifications as a whole: "If you wish to have peace with me, then destroy [all fortifications of] your towns".
After Daniel's death, King Lev rebuilt the town around 1270, choosing Lviv as his residence, and made it the capital of Galicia-Volhynia.
In 1272, Lev Danilovich, who promoted the development of the city. In particular, he designated three districts for the Armenian, Tatar and Jewish newcomers. The east district – for the Ruthenians, the north - for the Armenians, Tatars, in the south - for the Jews.
Around 1280 Armenians lived in Galicia and were mainly based in Lviv where they had their own archbishop.
In the 13th and early 14th centuries, Lviv was largely a wooden city, except for its several Galician-style stone churches. Some of them, like the Church of Saint Nicholas, have survived, although in a thoroughly rebuilt form. The town was inherited by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1340 and ruled by voivode Dmytro Dedko, the favourite of the Lithuanian prince Liubartas, until 1349.
In the 13th and 14th centuries the city and region was a destination of 50,000 Armenians fleeing from the Saljuq and Mongol invasions of Armenia.
Galicia–Volhynia Wars
During the wars over the succession of Galicia-Volhynia Principality in 1339 King Casimir III of Poland undertook an expedition and captured the city in 1340, burning down the old princely castle. Poland ultimately gained control over Lviv and the adjacent region in 1349. From then on the population was subjected to attempts to both Polonize and Catholicize the population. The Lithuanians ravaged Lviv land in 1351 during the Halych-Volhyn Wars with Lviv being plundered and destroyed by duke Liubartas in 1353.
Casimir built a new city centre (or founded a new town) in a basin, surrounded it by walls, and replaced the wooden palace by masonry castle – one of the two built by him. The old (Ruthenian) settlement, after it had been rebuilt, became known as the Krakovian Suburb in reference to the city of Kraków.
Kingdom of Poland
In 1349, the Kingdom of Ruthenia with its capital Lviv was annexed by the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The kingdom was transformed into the Ruthenian domain of the Crown with Lwów as the capital. On 17 June 1356 King Casimir III the Great moved the city to a new location and granted it Magdeburg rights, which implied that all city matters were to be resolved by a council elected by the wealthy citizens. The city's German-speaking Catholic burghers emerged as the dominant urban community and benefited from the support of the Polish monarch. In 1358, the city became a seat of a Roman Catholic Archdiocese, which initiated the spread of the Latin Church onto the Ruthenian lands. In 1362, the High Castle was built with stone.
After Casimir died in 1370, he was succeeded as king of Poland by his nephew, King Louis I of Hungary, who in 1372 put Lwów together with the region of Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia under the administration of his relative Vladislaus II of Opole, Duke of Opole. When in 1387 Władysław retreated from the post of its governor, Galicia-Volhynia was occupied by Hungary, but Jadwiga, the youngest daughter of Louis, and also the ruler of Poland and wife of King of Poland Władysław II Jagiełło, unified it directly with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.
As one of the largest and most influential royal cities of Poland, it enjoyed voting rights in the Royal elections in Poland, alongside other major cities such as Kraków, Poznań, Warsaw or Gdańsk. During the 17th century, it was the second largest city of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with a population of about 30,000. The city also served as a centre of education, housing a Jesuit Collegium and a school managed by the local Orthodox brotherhood.
In the 17th century Lviv was besieged unsuccessfully several times. Constant struggles against invading armies gave it the motto Semper fidelis. In 1648, the city was besieged by the Cossacks under Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who seized and destroyed the local castle. However, the Cossacks did not retain the city and withdrew, satisfying themselves with a ransom. In 1655 the Swedish armies invaded Poland and soon took most of it. Eventually the Polish king Jan II Kazimierz solemnly pronounced his vow to consecrate the country to the protection of the Mother of God and proclaimed Her the Patron and Queen of the lands in his kingdom at Lwów Latin Cathedral in 1656 (Lwów Oath).
In 1672, the city was surrounded by the Ottomans who also failed to conquer it. Three years later, the Battle of Lwów (1675) took place near the city. Lwów was captured for the first time since the Middle Ages by a foreign army in 1704, when Swedish troops under King Charles XII entered the city after a short siege.
Habsburg Empire
In 1772, following the First Partition of Poland, the region was annexed by the Habsburg monarchy to the Austrian Partition. Known in German as Lemberg, the city became the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Lemberg grew dramatically during the 19th century, increasing in population from approximately 30,000 at the time of the Austrian annexation in 1772, to 196,000 by 1910 and to 212,000 three years later; rapid population growth brought about an increase in urban squalor and poverty in Austrian Galicia. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries a large influx of Austrians and German-speaking Czech bureaucrats gave the city a character that by the 1840s was quite Austrian, in its orderliness and in the appearance and popularity of Austrian coffeehouses.
During Habsburg rule, Lviv became one of the most important Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish cultural centres. In Lviv, according to the Austrian census of 1910, which listed religion and language, 51% of the city's population was Roman Catholics, 28% Jews, and 19% belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Linguistically, 86% of the city's population used the Polish language and 11% preferred Ruthenian.
In 1773, the first newspaper in Lemberg, Gazette de Leopoli, began to be published. In 1784, a Latin language university was opened with lectures in German, Polish and Ruthenian; after closing in 1805, it was reopened in 1817. By 1825, German became the sole language of instruction. Lemberg University was opened by Maria Theresa in 1784. By 1787, her successor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor opened "Studium Ruthenum" for students who did not know enough Latin to take regular courses.
During the 19th century, the Austrian administration attempted to Germanise the city's educational and governmental institutions. A number of cultural organisations which did not have a pro-German orientation were closed. After the revolutions of 1848, the language of instruction at the university shifted from German to include Ukrainian and Polish. Around that time, a certain sociolect developed in the city known as the Lwów dialect. Considered to be a type of Polish dialect, it draws its roots from a number of other languages besides Polish. In 1853, kerosene lamps as street lighting were introduced by Ignacy Łukasiewicz and Jan Zeh. Then in 1858, these were updated to gas lamps, and in 1900 to electric ones.
After the so-called "Ausgleich" of February 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into a dualist Austria-Hungary and a slow yet steady process of liberalisation of Austrian rule in Galicia started. From 1873, Galicia was de facto an autonomous province of Austria-Hungary, with Polish and Ruthenian as official languages. Germanisation was halted and censorship lifted as well. Galicia was subject to the Austrian part of the Dual Monarchy, but the Galician Sejm and provincial administration, both established in Lviv, had extensive privileges and prerogatives, especially in education, culture, and local affairs. In 1894, the General National Exhibition was held in Lviv. The city started to grow rapidly, becoming the fourth largest in Austria-Hungary, according to the census of 1910. Multiple Belle Époque public edifices and tenement houses were erected, with a number of the buildings from the Austrian period, such as the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, built in the Viennese neo-Renaissance style.
At that time, Lviv was home to a number of renowned Polish-language institutions, such as the Ossolineum, with the second-largest collection of Polish books in the world, the Polish Academy of Arts, the National Museum (since 1908), the Historical Museum of the City of Lwów (since 1891), the Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists, the Polish Historical Society, Lwów University, with Polish as the official language since 1882, the Lwów Scientific Society, the Lwów Art Gallery, the Polish Theatre, and the Polish Archdiocese.
Furthermore, Lviv was the centre of a number of Polish independence organisations. In June 1908, Józef Piłsudski, Władysław Sikorski and Kazimierz Sosnkowski founded the Union of Active Struggle in the city. Two years later, the paramilitary organisation, called the Riflemen's Association, was also founded in the city by Polish activists.