1308 - Cistercians receive a land grant to form new settlements in the mountain region. A border settlement called Stare Cło is founded soon thereafter.
1346 - Nowy Targ founded by King Casimir the Great, based on the Stare Cło settlement, and granted significant internal autonomy based on Magdeburg law.
1487 - King Casimir IV Jagiellon grants the rights to two annual festivals, and a weekly market fair on Thursdays.
1533 - Nowy Targ obtains a statute requiring merchants to pass through the city when crossing the border.
1601 - Great fire destroys the parochial church and city records.
1914 - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is arrested as a possible spy in southern Poland by Austrian authorities; he is jailed in Nowy Targ for approximately 12 days.
1939 - German forces invade on 1 September, at approx. 16:30.
1941 - Resistance movement called the Tatra Confederation formed in Nowy Targ.
1942 - Jewish ghetto liquidated by Nazis on 30 August.
1945 - The Red Army forces out German occupants on 29 January. 4 Jewish Holocaust survivors who return to the town are being murdered by locals and the rest flee.
Due to its altitude, Nowy Targ is one of the coldest cities in Poland together with Suwałki and Zakopane. Winter usually lasts from late November to early April and between 90 and 110 days a year there is a snow cover. Air frost has been measured in every month of the year except for July. Summers are mild with occasional thunderstorms and high temperatures between 17 and 25 degrees Celsius. Hot days are rare, only occurring twice annually on average. Precipitation is heavy for Polish standards, varying between 900 millimetres at the airport and 1100 millimetres in Kowaniec to around 1350 millimetres on Bukowina Miejska, the highest part of the city. The growing season equally varies between on average 150 days on Bukowina Miejska to around 200 days in the lower parts of the city. Nowy Targ is in the AHS Heat Zones 1-2 and USDA Hardiness Zone 4a to 5b, depending on the location. According to the Köppen climate classification, Nowy Targ straddles the border of the Warm Summer Continental and Subarctic climates, with most of the city falling in the Dfb group. The Dfc climate is only found above 800 metres of elevation within Nowy Targ.
Culture
City Cultural Center
Youth Cultural Center
The Jatka Gallery
Museums
Museum of Podhale
Cinemas
Architecture
Wooden church overseeing the city cemetery. Its origins date to the 15th century, although local legends describe it as founded in 1219.
St. Anna Church
Initially built in a gothic style, it was later repaired and rebuilt featuring, among others, a baroque altar piece and paintings, a rococo pulpit, and 18th-century organ and bell tower.
St. Catherine Church
Dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, the church was built in 1346 by King Casimir the Great. It is the oldest existing church of the Podhale region. The church has been damaged by numerous fires and military attacks, and subsequently rebuilt and renovated. The interior retains its baroque character, especially in the altar and side chapels, although numerous pieces are replicas of wooden originals lost to fire. A painting of St. Catherine from 1892 dominates the main altar.
