(Yid., Lodzh), Polish city and industrial center about 100 km west of Warsaw. From a hamlet of 767 people, including 259 Jews, in 1820, Łódź grew over the next century to a city of 670,000, with a Jewish community of more than 230,000, the second largest in Poland. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Łódź was home to about 1 million people, fewer than 300 of whom were Jews.
