Kowal is a town in Wà Âocà Âawek County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in central Poland, with 3,478 inhabitants (2004).
Kowal was the birthplace of Casimir III the Great, the last Polish King from the Piast dynasty. It was a county seat and royal town of the Kingdom of Poland, administratively located in the Brzeà ÂàKujawski Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province.
During the German occupation of Poland (World War II), Kowal was one of the sites of executions of Poles, carried out by the Germans in 1939 as part of the Intelligenzaktion. In 1940, the German gendarmerie carried out expulsions of Poles, who were deported to a transit camp in à Âódà º and then to the General Government in the more-eastern part of German-occupied Poland, while their houses, shops and workshops were handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.
The town is located on Poland's most important northâÂÂsouth highway, National Road 1 (DK1). The town bypass for this road was opened in December, 2007, allowing heavy traffic to avoid the town center. The A1 motorway passes just to the northeast of the town.
Its local association football team is Kujawiak Kowal.
The town is the birthplace of