Korsze Municipality

An urban-rural municipality in the western part of Kętrzyn County. The General Assembly admitted it to the Association on 3 September 2026 as its twenty-fifth local government. It covers 249.94 km² and has about 8,400 residents, some 3,800 of them in the town of Korsze. The municipality comprises the town and 23 village councils. With its accession, every municipality of Kętrzyn County now belongs to the Association.

Overview

• Area: 249.94 km²
• Population: 8,424 (Statistics Poland, 31 December 2025)
• Village councils (sołectwa): 23
• Neighbours: the municipalities of Barciany, Kętrzyn, Reszel, Bisztynek and Sępopol; Barciany and Sępopol separate it from the state border
• A farming municipality — farmland covers about 78% of its area, forests about 15% (2002 data)
• Crossed by voivodeship roads 590 (Biskupiec–Reszel–Barciany) and 592 (Bartoszyce–Kętrzyn–Giżycko)

A town built by the railway

Korsze grew up in the second half of the 19th century around a railway junction. The station opened in 1867 on the line from Königsberg to Ełk, and in 1871 the Toruń–Insterburg line reached it. Korsze was granted town rights in 1962. Today railway lines 38 (Białystok–Głomno) and 353 (Poznań Wschód–Skandawa) cross here.

Three water towers, built in 1890, 1915 and 1938, survive from the old railway buildings. Korsze also has the neo-Gothic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (1903) and a former Protestant church of 1903–1904, an Orthodox church since 1968.

Heritage and nature

• Sątoczno — the Gothic Church of Christ the King (14th–15th century); a Teutonic Order watchtower stood here from 1326, where the Sajna flows into the Guber
• Łankiejmy — a village chartered in 1367, with the Gothic Church of St John the Baptist built in 1375–1400
• Prosna — ruins of the zu Eulenburg family palace on the Guber; the family held the village from 1520 until 1945
• A 31.2 km loop of the Green Velo cycling route through Korsze, Prosna, Sątoczno and Glitajny, partly along the Guber valley

Authorities

Mayor (Burmistrz): Jan Adamowicz (term 2024–2029)

Cooperation within the WMSP

The Korsze Town Council declared its will to join the Association in resolution no. XXXI/226/2026 of 9 June 2026, and the General Assembly admitted the municipality on 3 September 2026. Korsze joins the shared territorial strategy of the borderland through 2030.