Sister cities of Yavoriv

Yavoriv (Ukrainian: Яворів; Polish: Jaworów) is a city located in the Lviv Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Yavoriv Raion and rests approximately 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of the oblast capital, Lviv.

The current estimated population is around 13,500 (as of 2001).

Not far from it is the watering-place of Shklo with sulphur springs. The town was first mentioned in written documents in 1376, when it belonged to the Duke of Opava and Racibórz, Waclaw. It received Magdeburg rights in 1569, from King Zygmunt II August. It was a favorite residence of king John III Sobieski, who there received the congratulations from the Pope on his success against the Turks at Vienna (1683).

Until the Partitions of Poland, Yavoriv, or Jaworow, was an important center of commerce, located along main merchant route from Jarosław to Lwow. In 1772 it was annexed by the Habsburg Empire, as part of Austrian Galicia, where it remained until late 1918. In Galicia, it was the seat of a county, with the population of almost 11,000 (Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs).

In the immediate post-World War One period, the area of Jaworow witnessed Polish - Ukrainian fighting (see Polish-Ukrainian War). Here in 1919, authorities of the West Ukrainian People's Republic murdered 17 Polish prisoners, whom they accused of plotting against the government. After the war, the town became part of the Second Polish Republic, where it remained until the September 1939 Invasion of Poland.

Among notable people born here are Wladyslaw Langner (General of the Polish Army), Stanislaw Nowakowski (president of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association), and mathematician Wawrzyniec Zmurko.