Warsaw Mermaid

About the Mermaid

The Warsaw Mermaid is the official symbol of Warsaw, Poland. According to legend, a mermaid swam from the Baltic Sea to Warsaw and decided to stay, protecting the city. The statue shows her with a sword and shield, ready to defend the city.

Warsaw's coat of arms has featured a mermaid-like creature since the city's oldest surviving seal, dated to 1390, where a half-human, half-animal figure appears; over the centuries the image settled into a woman with a fish tail wielding a sword and round shield. Sculptural versions reinforced the association: Konstanty Hegel's cast-metal mermaid was placed in the Old Town Market Square in 1855, and Ludwika Nitschowa's larger figure, unveiled on the Vistula embankment in 1939, was modeled on Krystyna Krahelska, a poet who was fatally wounded in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Stories explaining how a mermaid reached the Vistula are folklore rather than documented history. Today the armed figure functions as the municipal emblem and a reference to the city's wartime defense and rebuilding.