Urban and Geographic Aspects of Building Height in Former Provincial Capitals in Poland

City	Number of buildings	Centres coordinates [PUWG1922]		DSM		DTM
City	Number of buildings	X	Y	Date	Grid	Date	Grid
Biała Podlaska	15,099	782432.0	471095.0	2023-09-27	1.0	2023-09-27	0.5
Bielsko-Biała	34,949	503072.0	217090.0	2024-04-30	1.0	2024-04-30	0.5
Chełm	11,902	812873.0	372397.0	2023-09-28	1.0	2023-09-28	0.5
Ciechanów	9954	608917.0	558612.0	2024-08-15	1.0	2023-09-10	0.5
Częstochowa	48,958	507974.0	327241.0	2024-04-29	1.0	2024-04-29	0.5
Elbląg	12,779	525705.0	699419.0	2023-09-06	1.0	2023-09-06	0.5
Jelenia Góra	13,914	270472.0	342438.0	2024-07-06	1.0	2024-07-06	0.5
Kalisz	19,985	437179.0	433287.0	2024-09-04	1.0	2024-09-04	0.5
Konin	13,491	449103.0	483132.0	2024-09-01	1.0	2024-09-01	0.5
Koszalin	14,876	316198.0	706579.0	2024-09-23	1.0	2024-09-23	0.5
Krosno	11,593	699356.0	206596.0	2024-05-27	1.0	2023-05-01	0.5
Legnica	12,305	301731.0	375047.0	2024-03-26	1.0	2024-03-26	0.5
Leszno	13,804	332962.0	444684.0	2024-09-04	1.0	2024-09-04	0.5
Łomża	9073	705858.0	594847.0	2024-06-27	1.0	2023-10-03	0.5
Nowy Sącz	19,009	622104.0	196668.0	2024-06-21	1.0	2023-05-01	0.5
Ostrołęka	9834	671859.0	582960.0	2024-07-20	1.0	2023-10-03	0.5
Piła	10,567	348636.0	589686.0	2024-09-17	1.0	2024-09-17	0.5
Piotrków Trybunalski	16,758	548400.0	393745.0	2024-04-09	1.0	2024-04-09	0.5
Płock	18,033	546460.0	520109.0	2023-09-12	1.0	2023-09-12	0.5
Przemyśl	9518	771263.0	219576.0	2024-06-16	1.0	2023-09-05	0.5
Radom	41,120	648989.0	395108.0	2023-09-09	1.0	2023-09-09	0.5
Siedlce	14,560	724350.0	483060.0	2023-09-08	1.0	2023-09-08	0.5
Sieradz	10,664	481865.0	414249.0	2024-04-27	1.0	2024-04-27	0.5
Skierniewice	12,131	578483.0	455118.0	2024-03-31	1.0	2024-03-31	0.5
Słupsk	10,096	372448.0	735424.0	2024-10-12	1.0	2024-10-12	0.5
Suwałki	10,633	756659.0	700035.0	2024-05-28	1.0	2023-09-16	0.5
Tarnobrzeg	10,427	689165.0	304200.0	2024-06-30	1.0	2023-05-01	0.5
Tarnów	19,605	642418.0	240254.0	2024-06-15	1.0	2023-09-06	0.5
Wałbrzych	13,297	308432.0	325626.0	2024-04-08	1.0	2024-04-08	0.5
Włocławek	16,478	504877.0	532766.0	2024-09-07	1.0	2024-09-07	0.5
Zamość	11,158	800071.0	325303.0	2023-09-04	1.0	2023-09-04	0.5

1 DSM – digital surface model; DTM – digital terrain model.

Table 2.

Average building heights in former provincial cities in Poland.

City	Average building height within radius Z from traditional city centre
City	1 km	2 km	3 km	5 km	Total
Legnica	14.20	11.59	10.87	10.44	10.40
Bielsko-Biała	13.07	10.97	10.40	9.31	9.09
Częstochowa	12.07	10.39	9.50	8.84	8.83
Elbląg	11.73	11.07	10.60	10.22	9.99
Wałbrzych	11.72	10.68	10.21	9.66	9.88
Kalisz	11.69	9.40	9.00	8.52	8.31
Przemyśl	11.58	10.15	9.48	9.06	9.05
Słupsk	11.26	9.36	9.18	9.06	9.06
Tarnów	11.26	10.04	9.37	8.95	8.93
Koszalin	11.11	9.60	9.27	8.83	8.71
Płock	10.94	10.26	9.45	9.57	9.16
Jelenia Góra	10.86	10.12	10.01	9.62	9.28
Piła	10.79	9.43	8.73	8.49	8.45
Włocławek	10.50	9.44	9.16	8.90	8.73
Tarnobrzeg	10.48	9.36	8.53	7.86	7.68
Siedlce	10.25	8.89	8.86	8.79	8.79
Radom	9.99	9.90	9.50	8.80	8.45
Ciechanów	9.91	8.74	8.49	8.32	8.31
Leszno	9.87	8.41	7.92	7.88	7.88
Suwałki	9.73	8.38	8.83	8.75	8.84
Łomża	9.70	9.70	9.28	8.92	8.92
Ostrołęka	9.61	9.01	9.16	9.13	9.10
Chełm	9.43	8.28	8.00	7.99	8.16
Piotrków Trybunalski	9.36	8.63	8.57	8.38	8.37
Zamość	9.30	8.57	8.29	8.18	8.18
Nowy Sącz	9.29	9.02	8.64	8.34	8.10
Krosno	8.87	8.57	8.26	7.90	7.87
Skierniewice	8.41	7.80	7.74	7.63	7.71
Sieradz	8.13	8.15	8.05	7.73	7.70
Biała Podlaska	7.85	8.22	7.81	7.62	7.62
Konin	7.41	7.82	8.24	7.82	8.70

Visualisations of Zamość developed using the compiled data.

Jelenia Góra – subsequent stages of model development.

Average building heights in former provincial cities in Poland in relation to distance from the city centre.

Clustering by average building height profile of former provincial cities based on the k-means method.

Table 3.

Classification of cities into clusters.

Cluster 1	Cluster 2
Biała Podlaska	Bielsko-Biała
Chełm	Częstochowa
Ciechanów	Elbląg
Konin	Jelenia Góra
Krosno	Kalisz
Leszno	Koszalin
Łomża	Legnica
Nowy Sącz	Piła
Ostrołęka	Płock
Piotrków Trybunalski	Przemyśl
Siedlce	Radom
Sieradz	Słupsk
Skierniewice	Tarnów
Suwałki	Wałbrzych
Tarnobrzeg	Włocławek
Zamość

Spatial distribution of former provincial cities based on cluster analysis.

Table 4.

Selected measures and indicators used to assess former provincial cities based on Statistics Poland Local Data Bank.

Cities	2024	2024	2023/2024	2024	2023
	1	2	3	4	5
	Indicator/measure
Biała Podlaska	53.89	1090.9	98.97	2363.87	5676
Bielsko-Biała	164.32	1320.4	99.13	3472.70	6783
Chełm	56.43	1411.9	98.64	2159.48	5412
Ciechanów	41.47	1265.2	99.35	2605.48	4913
Częstochowa	203.63	1274.8	98.86	2755.99	6165
Elbląg	112.05	1403.8	99.23	2260.65	6282
Jelenia Góra	74.19	678.8	98.76	2482.03	5515
Kalisz	91.96	1325.5	98.73	3031.36	5795
Konin	66.10	803.2	98.55	3105.66	5222
Koszalin	105.26	997.1	99.73	2728.05	6723
Krosno	43.59	975.0	98.93	2704.86	5849
Legnica	90.82	1613.5	98.77	2790.33	5352
Leszno	59.52	1868.2	99.12	2911.35	5639
Łomża	59.26	1814.0	99.25	2353.31	6227
Nowy-Sącz	79.82	1385.8	99.33	3085.63	6233
Ostrołęka	47.70	1425.5	98.90	3257.25	5868
Saw	69.38	765.7	99.04	2789.20	5523
Piotrków Trybunalski	66.02	981.9	99.25	2759.79	5639
Płock	110.02	1249.6	98.95	5845.95	6276
Przemyśl	55.29	1197.6	98.64	2088.54	5030
Radom	193.78	1733.2	98.86	2482.73	6271
Siedlce	74.78	2347.1	103.43	2925.97	7703
Sieradz	38.30	747.7	98.89	2709.07	5474
Skierniewice	45.12	1304.1	99.87	2873.80	6636
Słupsk	84.77	1607.3	99.15	2357.74	5693
Suwałki	68.14	1040.2	99.87	2466.38	6500
Tarnobrzeg	43.22	506.1	98.88	1988.25	5418
Tarnów	102.12	1411.1	99.02	2781.23	5877
Walbrzych	98.75	1166.1	98.46	2055.25	4161
Włocławek	99.47	1169.0	98.67	2994.53	5403
Zamość	57.52	1896.3	98.78	2185.77	6555

1 Note: 1 – Population in thousands, 2 – Population per 1 km², 3 – Decline/growth in population (in %), 4 – Wealth per capita (G-index of basic tax revenue per capita of the municipality adopted for the calculation of the compensatory subsidy for 2024), 5 – Average price per 1 m² of dwellings sold under market transactions.

Table 5.

Relationship between building height of former provincial capitals in Poland and selected socio-economic indicators in 2024 – based on the Spearman rank order correlation.

Indicator/measure	Average city height within administrative borders [W1]	Average city height within 1 km radius from conventional central point [W2]
Population in thousands [Z1]	0.597	0.706
Population per 1 km² [Z2]	0.205	0.158
Population decrease/growth in % [Z3]	–0.053	–0.085
Wealth per capita [Z4]	0.074	0.005
Average price per m² of dwellings [Z5]	0.047	0.024

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/quageo-2026-0018 | Journal eISSN: 2081-6383 | Journal ISSN: 2082-2103 (formerly 0137-477X)

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Language: English

Page range: 31 - 45

Submitted on: Jun 30, 2025

Published on: Jun 30, 2026

Published by: Adam Mickiewicz University

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

urban building height,

architecture and urban planning,

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© 2026 Paweł Czapliński, Paweł Rubinowicz, Olga Gazińska, Konrad Bajor, published by Adam Mickiewicz University
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 45 (2026): Issue 2 (June 2026)

Urban and Geographic Aspects of Building Height in Former Provincial Capitals in Poland

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1.

Table 1.

Table 2.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

Table 3.

Fig. 6.

Table 4.

Table 5.

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