C.O.A.L. Region Upper Silesia and Katowice Agglomeration
Upper Silesia is historical region and Katowice Agglomeration is situated in the central part of the Silesian Voivodeship and plays role of its heart. It’s the largest urban and industrial agglomeration in Poland. The area of the Agglomeration covers approx.1230 km2 and its population is about 2.1 million. The area constitutes a polycentric conurbation consisting of several towns and cities of industrial origin.
Katowice Agglomeration comprises a few large cities with the population above 200 thousand residents and several smaller towns of industrial origin They are connected with each other by a public transportation network, municipal infrastructure network and public utilities system. As a consequence, the natural borders between the settlements no longer exist. The Katowice Agglomeration shows the highest population density both in the Voivodeship and in the country. It covers 10% of the Voivodeship area while it is inhabited by 50% of the Voivodeship population..
From the point of view of natural landscape categorization, the discussed area is classified to the category of upland landscapes. This category is further divided into three subcategories: upland loessic landscape, upland landscape on carbonate rocks and upland landscape on siliceous rocks. . The Katowice Agglomeration is located in the Vistula and Odra Rivers basin, and covers the area of their upper tributaries. The watershed separating the two river basins cross-cuts the central part of Agglomeration.
The present shape of the Agglomeration results from intensive industrialization followed by dynamically progressing urbanization dated back to the turn of the 19th century. The Katowice Agglomeration is the only region of Poland on which high concentration of both: industry and areas of urban functions can be found.
Dynamic industrialization of the Katowice Agglomeration progressed independently from the shape of the state borders. The process went on all over the area giving raise to expedited development of towns and settlements. These were the local natural resources, primarily hard coal, which played the predominant role in the Agglomeration's development. Centuries ago precious raw materials: hard coal as well as zinc and lead ores constituted the foundations of the nowadays mining and metallurgical industry. First historical references concerning industrial activity in the area go back to the 12th century. Large scale hard coal extraction industry developed in the second half of the 18th century. Since the 19th century development of industry in the discussed area has progressed in a scale not witnessed in any other parts of Poland. Development of railway and its increasing importance even more accelerated the development of the Agglomeration's economy.
Mining and metallurgy were basic factors which intensified immigration to the region. Development of industry and job opportunities attracted large numbers of newcomers - workers. This migration resulted in a quick transformation of workers settlements and small towns into a large urban organisms. The plant or mine, in majority of cases, became surrounded by densely built up structures: residential houses, public utilities, municipal facilities etc. These structures transformed themselves into towns, which expanding over the suburbs of urban and industrial character made a cluster of powerful urban centers.
Summarizing, the economic development of the discussed area led to establishing a Poland's largest urban and industrial Agglomeration, which concentrates immense economic and human potential. The dynamics of these process is based on the exploration of the local potentials what resulted in considerable degradation of its environment as well as led to the deterioration of the conditions and standard of the local community's life.