Sopotnia Wielka Dark Sky Community

Sopotnia Wielka is a village in Jeleśnia commune in the south of Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, about 35 kilometers from the nearest city and roughly 100 kilometers from the Katowice metro area. It lies in the valley of the Sopotnia stream below the Pilsko massif in the Żywiec Beskids, and the whole village is inside Żywiecki Park Krajobrazowy, a regional protected area. DarkSky International certified it in 2023 as Poland's first International Dark Sky Community.

The work started with residents in the late 1990s, who persuaded officials to cut back night street lighting. In 2011 the village replaced all 150 sodium street lamps with fully shielded fixtures at 3,000 Kelvin or warmer. The effort then moved on to household lighting, local lighting guidelines and a Rational Lighting Policy in the commune's 2023 to 2030 development strategy. The village hosts dark sky workshops and the annual Polish Dark-Sky Festival.

Our light pollution map estimates Bortle 6 at our coordinates, and DarkSky's page gives no sky brightness reading. At nearly 50 degrees north the Milky Way core is a low target here, peaking only about 11 degrees above the southern horizon. Our data gives May, April and August the most core hours, since short June nights cut into the dark window. With the core that low, the valley walls and any haze to the south matter a lot, so look for a spot on higher ground with an open southern view.