Market Square in Prudnik, Market Square

Market Square in Prudnik is a rectangular plaza in the city center surrounded by Renaissance and Baroque buildings with colorful facades and historic details. The square holds several monuments including a statue of Saint John of Nepomuk, a Marian Column commemorating a past plague, and a fountain dating from the late 1600s.

Laid out on a rectangle at the town's founding using the Flemish rope measure, the square was first named in a 1481 document. A wooden town hall stood at its centre; in 1570 the council ordered a brick cloth-hall. On 28 February 1779 Austrian artillery fire burned almost the whole town, including the square and town hall, rebuilt with aid from Frederick II.

The square's name appeared in a document in 1481, and in 1840 it was officially named Markt, later Ring. In the 1960s and 1970s it hosted the city's main state holiday celebrations. Since 2022 the former Weidinger tenement has housed the art gallery "No Ba!".

The square lies in the centre of the Old Town, with the town hall occupying its central block; the surviving market buildings stand beside it. A tunnel in the southern frontage links the square with Sobieskiego Street. The granite paving of the eastern, western and northern sides dates from 1862.

The square's layout used the Flemish rope, a medieval measure: its area was fixed at 2 by 1 ropes, equal to one morgen of 20 by 15 rods. The name Rynek first appears in a document of 1481, when a wooden town hall already stood in the centre. In December 1756, during the Third Silesian War, the Polish nobleman Mateusz Kutkowski was hanged here for desertion.