The Baltic City of Gdansk

Gdansk is city in northern Poland, the administrative center of Gdansk Province, a seaport on the Gulf of Gdansk. The city was formerly the administrative center of the free city of Danzig, an area controlled by the League of Nations. The harbor, equipped with extensive facilities for the accommodation of oceangoing vessels, lies in the lee (the side sheltered from the wind) of Hel Peninsula. Two dredged arms of the Wisla (Vistula) River extend through …

…infrastructure suffered heavy damage during the war. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Danzig was awarded to Poland. Beginning with incidents of labor unrest in 1970, Gdansk became the country's center for protest against the country's Communist government. In 1980, further unrest and strikes in the city's shipyards led to the formation of the Solidarity labor federation. This group was instrumental in bringing about free elections in Poland in 1989, and led the coalition government that came to power.