Wojnicz is an ancient historic town in Tarnów County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship. In the early medieval period of the Polish state, it became one of the most important centres in the province of Lesser Poland, as part of the system of Dunajec river castles. It became the seat of a Castellan and prospered from the 13th century to the first half of the 17th century, being on an international trade route bordering Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. It had town and market rights, its church was raised to collegiate status with links to the Jagiellonian University in Kraków 64 km away.
It was the scene of the Battle of Wojnicz on 3 October 1655, against Swedish invaders. Wojnicz was burned down around eight times in the course of its thousand-year history. In trade terms it lost out from the 17th century to its junior neighbour 12 km to the East, the city of Tarnów. It was further disadvantaged during Habsburg rule when the new Kraków–Tarnów railway was positioned 10 km to the north. It remained a backwater throughout the Second Republic of Poland in the inter-war years and was stripped of its town rights. Wojnicz regained its Town rights, after 70 years, in 2007. The Coat of arms of Wojnicz consists of an escutcheon bearing the figure of Roman martyr, St. Lawrence against a gridiron, symbolising his gruesome death by roasting.
Wojnicz lies on the boundary of two distinct geographical regions in Poland: the Sandomierz Basin and the Western Carpathians. The Dunajec, a major tributary of the Vistula River, flows 2 km east of the present town centre. The decline of Wojnicz deprived it of a rail link when a railway line was planned in the 1850s. It is however located at the intersection of European route E40, and local route number 975 from Dąbrowa Tarnowska to Nowy Sącz.
