POLSKA	POLAND
województwo: Dolnośląskie	voivodship: Lower Silesia
powiat: Lubań	county: Lubań

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Leśna is situated at an elevation of 284 m north of the Jizera Mountains on the left banks of the Kwisa River, the eastern edge of the historic Upper Lusatia region. It lies approximately 11  south of Lubań, and 125 km west of the regional capital Wrocław. Leśna is also the seat of the administration of the rural district (gmina) of the same name. The municipality has a population of about 4,600 (2015).

Leśna castle, erected on the border with the Polish Duchy of Silesia about 1.5 km southeast of the town, was first mentioned in a 1247 deed whereby it was ceded by Bohemia to the bishops of Meißen. The settlement Lissa is documented in 1329. In 1346, the Kwisa region reverted to the Bohemian Crown, whereafter the lordship was enfeoffed to local noble dynasties. A first town layout was abandoned in 1434 upon devastations by the Hussite Wars, a flood and a fire, and rebuilt at its present location further south on the route from Frýdlant to Lubań. A centre of cloth manufacturing, it received market rights in 1515. The German name Marklissa first appeared in 1574. Upon the 1635 Peace of Prague it fell with Upper Lusatia to the Electorate of Saxony. The town's economy was boosted by the immigration of Protestants fleeing from the Counter-Reformation in the adjacent Habsburg lands of Bohemia and Silesia. After the Napoleonic Wars and the 1815 Congress of Vienna, southeastern Upper Lusatia was annexed by Prussia and incorporated into the Province of Silesia. With Prussia Marklissa became part of the German Empire in 1871. After World War II the town, located east of the Oder–Neisse line, was ceded to the Republic of Poland according to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement. The German population was expelled and the area resettled with Poles deported from the eastern Kresy borderlands.

The Leśna dam [left] on the Kwisa (German: Queis) river was built in 1901–1905 by the government of the Prussian Province of Silesia in order to protect Marklissa from the up to then frequent floodings caused by the river. The damis 45 metres high and 150 metres long. Lake Leśna, created by the dam, is about 7 km long and up to 1 km wide; it covers an area of 149 hectares and has a volume of about 15 million cubic metres. Between 1905 and 1907, a hydroelectric power plant was built, again funded by the government of Silesia. The lake is a popular summer vacation centre, with several campsites and watersports facilities.

Glass no. 3272 [left] is a souvenir from the German Millers' Day at Görlitz (today divided between the German town Görlitz and the Polish town Zgorzelec. The glass is labeled in German: Zur Erinnerung an den Deutschen Müllertag Görlitz 20.–24. Juni 1908.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leśna, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leśna, http://fallingrain.com/world/PL/72/Lesna.html; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marklissa-Talsperre, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Leśnia]