Title: City L'viv. Status: The city of republican status, the administrative center of L'viv region. Location: The city is located in western Ukraine, about 70 km from the border of Poland. Area: 182 sq. km. Population: More than 700,000 inhabitants. River: Poltva. The first mention in historical documents: 1256. Historical note: Since 5 c. AD in place of L'viv settlements existed already. Later, these lands, may be, were owned by the Great Moravia State. In the 10 c., Kyiv Rus and Poland had a claim to them. According to the Chronicle of Nestor, in 981, they were conquered by Volodymyr the Great. According to the most common version, L'viv was founded only in 13 c. by Prince Danilo Galitsky and was named in honor of his son, Leo. According to another version, the city was founded by the son of Danilo Galitsky. The Old L'viv consisted of three parts: a fortified city, town roundabout and the Undercity. The Princes town was built along the Volyn road on the trade route that went from the Black Sea via the Galich-L'viv-Holm to the Baltic Sea. Buildings were mostly wooden, and therefore none of the ancient monuments was conserved. In the years 1340-1349 in the city ​​ Dmitrii Ditko ruled, the governor of the Lithuanian prince Lubart. In 1349, the Polish king Casimir III the Great captured L'viv. In 1356, he gave the Magdeburg rights to the town. This contributed to the rapid development of the city. Since 1370 the city was part of Hungary, and in 1387, L'viv and the surrounding lands were seized by the troops of the Polish Queen Jadwiga. Entering a part of Poland, L'viv became the capital of the Russian province, which included five districts with centers in the cities L'viv, Holm, Sanok, Galich and Przemysl. The year 1527 was marked by the great fire, which burned almost the entire city. In 17 c. the city withstood numerous sieges ​​successfully. However, in 1704, during the Great Northern War, the city for the first time in its history, was captured and plundered by the army of Swedish King Karl XII. In 1707 to L'viv Czar Peter I came. According to legend, the carriage, in which he was riding, got stuck in mud on an unpaved Market square. After that, the entire square was paved with wooden pavement. In 1608 the monks of the Jesuits founded the Jesuit College in L'viv, which in 1661 was transformed into the L'viv University. One of the most famous pupils of the Jesuits Bogdan Khmelnitsky was. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, L'viv became the capital of the Austrian province - the so-called Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Since 1772 till 1918 the city was called Lemberg. In 1883 in L'viv the first urban telephone communication began to work, and in 1893 the first electric tram was launched. At the beginning of the First World War the city was captured by Russian troops (September 1914) and until 14 July 1915 it was the center of Galician governor-generalship until the city was not occupied by the Austro-Hungarian troops again. After the collapse of the Habsburg Empire at the end of World War II, on Nov. 1, 1918 Ukrainian politicians proclaimed the city the capital of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. With the arrival of Ukrainian and Polish armies in the city the fighting turned, which resulted in that the Ukrainian army was forced to leave L'viv. Ukrainian authorities declared a general mobilization. Polish-Ukrainian war lasted until July 1919. After the signing of the Riga peace agreement, L'viv was a Polish city, the administrative center of L'viv province. On September 1, 1939 Nazi troops invaded Poland. On September 19 to the city the Red Army came. In accordance with Secret additional protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, on the night of September 21, Soviet troops replaced German troops and began to prepare for the assault, but the Polish command decided to resume negotiations. After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 OUN began attempts to capture the city, but they were pushed by Soviet border guards. On June, 30 the city was occupied by the Germans. German authorities organized a concentration camp in the Citadel, where they destroyed more than 140,000 Soviet, French and Italian prisoners of war, and L'viv ghetto and concentration camp "Janivs'ki" for the destruction of the Jewish population. In the L'viv-Sandomierz operation the city was in the ring and two days later it was released from German troops. The Soviet government initiated a tough policy of suppression of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. After the death of Stalin, Soviet policy became more lenient, and L'viv was an important center of Ukrainian culture. Main attractions: the historic center of Lviv, the St. Elzbieta (Elizabeth) church, the St. Yury Cathedral, the Uspens'ka Church, Park-Museum "Shevchenkivs'kyi Hai". Source of information: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Львов