Bielsko-Biała, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland

🇵🇱 Bielsko-Biała is a city in southern Poland. It is the centre of the Bielsko Urban Agglomeration and is an automotive, transport, and tourism hub of the Bielsko Industrial Region. Situated north of the Beskid Mountains, Bielsko-Biała is composed of two former towns which merged in 1951 – Bielsko in the west and Biała in the east – on opposite banks of the Biała River that once divided Silesia and Lesser Poland. The city currently lies within the Silesian Voivodeship. Bielsko-Biała is one of the most business friendly medium size cities in Poland. In the 2014 ranking of the 'Most Attractive Cities for Business' published yearly by Forbes the city was ranked 3rd in the category of cities. Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry. Four areas in the city belong to the Katowice Special Economic Zone. The city region is a home for several manufacturers of high-performance gliders and aircraft.

Bielsko-Biała is located within a short distance to Czech and Slovakian borders on the crossroads of two Expressways (S1 and S52) connecting Poland with Southern Europe:Expressway S1 connects the city with Slovakia via the border town Zwardoń; and Expressway S52 connects the city with the Czech Republic via the border town Cieszyn. Bielsko-Biała is connected with the rest of Poland by the dual carriageway DK1 road running to Tychy where it intersects the Expressway S1 and further to Katowice where it intersects the Motorway A4.

Bielsko-Biała is connected by direct train services with the following large Polish cities (November 2014): Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź, Olsztyn, Opole, Szczecin, Toruń, Warszawa (Warsaw), Wrocław. There are 3 international airports within the 90 km distance from Bielsko-Biała, all serving connections with major European cities: Katowice International Airport, Kraków John Paul II International Airport, Ostrava Leoš Janáček Airport.