Editing Opole Voivodeship (section)

==History==
[[File:OPna49.png|thumb|Voivodeships between 1975 and 1998 superimposed over the current borders of the Opole Voivodeship]]
The territory became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century, and later on, [[Brzeg]], [[Namysłów]], [[Niemodlin]], [[Opole]], [[Prudnik]] and [[Strzelce Opolskie]] were ducal seat of local lines of the [[Piast dynasty]].

Opole Voivodeship was created on January 1, 1999, out of the former Opole Voivodeship and parts of [[Częstochowa Voivodeship]], pursuant to the [[Polish local government reforms]] adopted in 1998.
Originally, the government, advised by prominent historians, had wanted to disestablish Opolskie and partition its territory between the [[Lower Silesian Voivodeship|Lower Silesian]] and [[Silesian Voivodeship]] (eastern [[Upper Silesia]] and western [[Lesser Poland]]). The plan was that Brzeg and Namysłów, as the Western part of the region, were to be transferred to Lower Silesia, while the rest was to become, along with a part of the Częstochowa Voivodeship, an integral part of the new 'Silesian' region. However, the plans resulted in an outcry from the [[German minority in Poland|German minority]] population of Opole Voivodeship, who feared that should their region be abolished, they would lose all hope of regional representation (in the proposed Silesian Region, they would have formed a very small minority among a great number of ethnic Poles). To the surprise of many of the ethnic Germans in Opole however, the local Polish Silesian population and groups of ethnic Poles also rose up to oppose the planned reforms; this came about as a result of an overwhelming feeling of attachment to the voivodeships that were scheduled to be 'redrawn', as well as a fear of 'alienation' should one find themselves residing in a new, unfamiliar region.

The solution came in late 1999, when [[Olesno]] was, after 24 years apart, finally reunited with the Opole Voivodeship to form the new legally defined region. A historic moment came in 2006 when the town of [[Radłów, Opole Voivodeship|Radłów]] changed its local laws to make German, alongside Polish, the district's second official language, becoming the first town in the region to do so.