Szlaki województw śląskiego i opolskiego

Paczków is a town in the Nysa district, the seat of the Paczków urban-rural municipality. It is located in the Sudeten Foothills, in historical Lower Silesia. The town, located on the Nysa Kłodzka river, between Lake Otmuchów and the Paczków Reservoir, is inhabited by 7.6 thousand residents. The first mention of the town dates back to the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. For several centuries, Paczków was the property of the bishops of Wrocław, and from 1327 it was under the sovereignty of Bohemia. Rapid economic development was brought to the town in the 15th century, when Paczków became an important center of cloth production and trade. In the 1520s, Paczków, along with the whole of Silesia, fell under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. From this period originate, among others, the Renaissance town hall building with a tower, a brewery, and two water supply lines. The turn of the 15th and 16th centuries was also a period of intensified work on the town's fortifications. The end of Paczków's magnificence falls on the years of the Thirty Years' War. Another economic revival in the town occurred at the beginning of the 19th century, when – along with the takeover of all of Silesia by the Prussian authorities – the rest of the bishop's power was abolished and the secularization of the bishopric duchy was carried out. In the second half of the century, a factory of firefighting equipment and machine building, a brickyard, and a gasworks started operating. After World War II, Paczków found itself within the borders of the Polish state. To this day, the medieval urban layout with the town hall and a Renaissance tower, the fortified church of St. John the Evangelist, and the defensive walls with bastions and gate towers have survived in the town.