Poręba

Poręba is a town in Zawiercie County, Silesian Voivodeship, in southern Poland, with 8,525 inhabitants (2019). The town has the area of . It also has a rail station on a line from Miasteczko Śląskie to Zawiercie. Almost half of Poręba's area (49%) is covered by forests.

==History== thumb|left|upright|18th-century industrial tower Poręba belongs to Lesser Poland, and until 1795 (see Partitions of Poland), it was part of the Kraków Voivodeship of the Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. First mention of the Poręba settlement comes from 1375, and at that time, it was called Black Poręba, located by a lake called Black Lake. Until the 16th century, the area was sparsely populated, and covered by dense woods. The development of industry resulted in influx of settlers, and in the 16th century Poręba became a center of early steel and iron plants. The village belonged at that time to the Pilecki family. In 1795, after the Third Partition of Poland, it was annexed by Prussia. The first blast furnace was built in 1798 by efforts of Count . In 1806 the village was regained by Poles, and included within the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, and in 1815, it became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland, and Poręba further developed, becoming a local industrial center.