Posnan - Administrative Division

Administrative Division

Poznań is divided into 42 neighbourhoods (osiedles), each of which has its own elected council with certain decision-making and spending powers. The first uniform elections for these councils covering the whole area of the city were held on 20 March 2011.

For certain administrative purposes, the old division into five districts (dzielnicas) is used - although these ceased to be governmental units in 1990. These were:

• Stare Miasto ("Old Town"), population 161,200, area 47.1 km2 (18.2 sq mi), covering the central and northern parts of the city
• Nowe Miasto ("New Town"), population 141,424, area 105.1 km2 (40.6 sq mi), including all parts of the city on the right (east) bank of the Warta
• Grunwald, population 125,500, area 36.2 km2 (14.0 sq mi), covering the south-western parts of the city
• Jeżyce, population 81,300, area 57.9 km2 (22.4 sq mi), covering the north-western parts of the city
• Wilda, population 62,290, area 15.0 km2 (5.8 sq mi), in the southern part of the city

Citizens of Poznań thanks to the strong economy of the city and high salaries started moving to suburbs (Powiat Poznanski) in the 90's. Although the number of inhabitants in Poznań itself was decreasing for the past two decades, the suburbs gained almost twice as much inhabitants. Thus, Poznań urban area has been growing steadily over past years and has already reached 1.0 million inhabitants when student population is included, whereas the entire metropolitan zone may have reached 1.5-1.7 million inhabitants when satellite cities and towns (so-called second Poznań ring counties such as Wrzesnia, Gniezno and Koscian) are included. The complex infrastructure, population density, number of companies and gross product per capita of Poznań suburbs may be only compared to Warsaw suburbs. It is interesting to note that many parts of closer suburbs (for example Tarnowo Podgorne, Komorniki, Suchy Las, Dopiewo) produce more in terms of GDP per capita than the city itself.