Basic facts - Cracow
Kraków (Polish pronunciation: ?krakuf About this sound listen (help?info)), also Cracow or Krakow (US English /?kr??ka?/, UK English /?kr?ka?/),23 is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River (Polish: Wisła) in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century.4 Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life and is one of Poland's most important economic hubs. It was the capital of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from 1038 to 1569; the Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1596;5 the Free City of Kraków from 1815 to 1846; the Grand Duchy of Cracow from 1846 to 1918; and Kraków Voivodeship from the 14th century to 1998. It has been the capital of Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999.
Źródło: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w
About Vistula
The Vistula (/?v?stj?l?/; Polish: Wisła ?viswa) is the longest and largest river in Poland, at 1,047 kilometres (651 miles) in length. The drainage basin area of the Vistula is 194,424 km2 (75,068 sq mi), of which 168,699 km2 (65,135 sq mi) lies within Poland (splitting the country in half). The remainder is in Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland, 1,220 meters (4,000 ft) above sea level in the Silesian Beskids (western part of Carpathian Mountains), where it begins with the White Little Vistula (Biała Wisełka) and the Black Little Vistula (Czarna Wisełka).1 It then continues to flow over the vast Polish plains, passing several large Polish cities along its way, including Kraków, Sandomierz, Warsaw, Płock, Włocławek, Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Świecie, Grudziądz, Tczew and Gdańsk. It empties into the Vistula Lagoon (Zalew Wiślany) or directly into the Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea with a delta and several branches (Leniwka, Przekop, Śmiała Wisła, Martwa Wisła, Nogat and Szkarpawa).
Źródło: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula
Vistula - about the name
The name was first recorded by Pomponius Mela in a.d. 40 and by Pliny in a.d. 77 in his Natural History. Mela names the river Vistula (3.33), Pliny uses Vistla (4.81, 4.97, 4.100). The root of the name Vistula is Indo-European *u?eis- ?to ooze, flow slowly? (cf. Sanskrit ?????? / ave?an ?they flowed?, Old Norse veisa ?slime?) and is found in many European rivernames (e.g. Weser, Viesinta).2 The diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European languages, including Latin (see Ursula).
In writing about the Vistula River and its peoples, Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling Ouistoula. Other ancient sources spell it Istula. Ammianus Marcellinus refers to the Bisula (Book 22), note the lack the -t-. Jordanes (Getica 5 & 17) uses Viscla while the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the Wistla.3 12th-century Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek Latinised the rivername as Vandalus, a form presumably influenced by Lithuanian vandu? ?water?, while Jan Długosz in his Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae called the Vistula ?white waters? (Alba aqua), perhaps referring to the White Little Vistula (Biała Wisełka): ?a nationibus orientalibus Polonis vicinis, ob aquae candorem Alba aqua ... nominatur.?
Źródło: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula