SOSNOWIEC

town, Katowice wojewdztwo (province), southern Poland. It lies along the Czarna Przemsza River, which is a tributary of the Vistula. A rail junction in the Silesian Upland, Sosnowiec has numerous heavy-industrial plants, coal mines, textile mills, and glassworks. It also possesses Poland's first mining museum, which has some 5,000 exhibits. A castle was built in Sosnowiec in the 17th century. The town was rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1830 and began to prosper with the building of the Warsaw-Vienna rail line in 1845. It had become an industrial centre by the end of the 19th century. Town rights were acquired in 1902. Pop. (1993 est.) 251,300.