Przasnysz (; , ) is a town in north-central Poland. Located in the Masovian Voivodship, about 110 km north of Warsaw and about 115 km south of Olsztyn, it is the capital of Przasnysz County. It has 18,093 inhabitants (2004). It was one of the most important towns in Mazovia during the Middle Ages. Przasnysz was granted town privileges in 1427. History The oldest traces of settlement in the area of Przasnysz come from the turn of the Bronze and Iron Age (around 700 BC). In the 13th century in Przasnysz, on the Węgierka River, there was a market settlement. There was also a hunting court of the Mazovian princes, described by Henryk Sienkiewicz in The Knights of the Cross. The name of the city according to folk sources comes from the miller Przaśnik, who hosted the stray hunting Duke Konrad I of Masovia and was then knighted with the surrounding lands. Przasnysz's rapid development was due to its favorable location on the border between two economically important areas - the Kurpiowska Plain and the agricultural Ciechanowska Upland. On October 10, 1427, Przasnysz obtained town privileges under the Chełmno law from the Masovian Duke Janusz I of Warsaw. The town flourished in the 16th century, especially after the incorporation of Mazovia into the Crown in 1526. Przasnysz was a royal town and a county seat in the Ciechanów Land in the Masovian Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown. In 1576, Przasnysz became the seat of the non-castle starostwo (eldership). In 1648, the Przasnysz eldership was awarded to the defender of Zbaraż, Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki. Partitions of Poland After the defeat of the Kościuszko Uprising and the Third Partition of Poland (1795), Przasnysz became part of the Kingdom of Prussia as the seat of a large county including Ciechanów. On January 30, 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte made a visit in Przasnysz. In the years 1807–1815 Przasnysz was part of the Duchy of Warsaw, and then, after the Congress of Vienna, became part of so-called Congress Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire. In November 1863, Przasnysz was the site of a Russian execution of , commander of a Polish insurgent unit, which fought in northern Masovia during the January Uprising. During World War I, in November and December 1914, heavy fighting took place near Przasnysz between the Russian and German armies. The city changed hands many times.