It is an important academic site, with about , students and Adam Mickiewicz University , the third largest Polish university. The city serves as the seat of the oldest Polish diocese , now being one of the most populous Catholic archdioceses in the country. The city's name appears in documents in the Latin nominative case as Posnania in and Poznania in The phrase in Poznan appears in and The Latin names of the city are Posnania and Civitas Posnaniensis.
In Polish, the city's name has masculine grammatical gender. This period of fragmentation lasted until Thomas brought a large number of German settlers to aid in the building and settlement of the city โ this is an example of the German eastern migration Ostsiedlung characteristic of that period. The city's importance began to grow in the Jagiellonian period, due to its position on trading routes from Lithuania and Ruthenia to western Europe. It would become a major center for the fur trade by the late 16th century.
However, the city's development was hampered by regular major fires and floods. On 2 May a fire destroyed buildings, including the castle, the town hall, the monastery, and the suburban settlement called St. However, the Jesuits' college , founded in the city in during the Counter-Reformation , had the right to award degrees from until , when it was combined with the academy. It was also hit by frequent outbreaks of plague , and by floods, particularly that of , which destroyed most of the suburban buildings.
The Prussian authorities expanded the city boundaries, making the walled city and its closest suburbs into a single administrative unit. Roch in The old city walls were taken down in the early 19th century, and major development took place to the west of the old city, with many of the main streets of today's city center being laid out.
In the Greater Poland uprising of , Polish soldiers and civilian volunteers assisted the efforts of Napoleon by driving out Prussian forces from the region. The city's first railway, running north-west to Stargard , opened in Work began on the citadel with Fort Winiary in , and in subsequent years the entire set of defenses called Festung Posen was completed. It would become part of the German Empire with the unification of German states in It became a national stage for the inhabitants of the province of Posen, and even in whole Greater Poland region , acting as a mainstay of polish tradition and culture, and as a sign of resistance against the restrictive policies of the Prussian partition authorities.
