Sztum

Poland, Poland

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Sztum is a town in northern Poland's Pomeranian Voivodeship, serving as the seat of Sztum County with around 10,000 residents, located amid the Iławskie Lakeland between Lake Sztumskie and Lake Barlewickie in the historic Powiśle region.

Originally a Prussian fortified settlement conquered by the Teutonic Knights in 1236, it featured an early gród on an island in Lake Białe, followed by a stone castle from the 1270s and town rights granted in 1416, becoming a key administrative center for wójts and visited by figures like Nicolaus Copernicus in 1506-1512 and King Sigismund II Augustus in 1552.

Incorporated into Poland via the 1466 Second Peace of Toruń after the Thirteen Years' War, it hosted sejmiks and starosts in its castle until partitions shifted control to Prussia, with the Gothic stronghold—featuring the Albrecht Tower from 1377—later adapted as a residence, now preserving ruins alongside medieval walls as prime attractions in a landscape of lakes and forests.