It is the heart of the town, its mainmeeting placeand one of the most magnificent 16th century squares in Europe. Its shape is that of a square, whose side is 100 m long. Two main axes of the town cross in the Rynek: the representative axis (Grodzka Street), which joins Zamoyski palace to Bastion No. 7 and the trade axis (Ratuszowa and Moranda Streets) which joins the three markets, i.e. the Wodny, the Solny markets and the Rynek.
Major town events take place in the Rynek. In 1994 Paweł Dudziński, an artist from Zamość, with the staff of the Perfomer Theatre painted the largest painting in the world called “Amritha” on the surface of the Rynek and the adjacent streets. Every year on New Year’s night thousands of Zamość residents and visitors greet the New Year in the Rynek. In summer in numerous outdoor cafes people stay up till late, enjoying their free time.
The Rynek is surrounded with tenement houses with arcades. In the past, the houses were owned by patricians: rich merchants, professors of the academy and courtiers. Originally, all the tenement houses in the Rynek and many other important buildings were topped with parapets – decorative walls protecting their roofs. At present parapets can only be found on the Town Hall and the adjacent Armenian houses. In the arcades there are richly ornamented portals and stuccoes on the vaults.
In front of the stairs of the Town Hall there is a piece of 17th century cobbled surface as well as a tablet devoted to Józef Piłsudski, which commemorates the fact that the Marshall attended the Mass celebrated in the Rynek on 17 October 1922.
