Tuchola tu'hola (Tuchel; Tëchòlô) is a town in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland. The Pomeranian town, which is the seat of Tuchola County, had a population of 13,418 .
Tuchola lies about north of Bydgoszcz, close to the Tuchola Forests. Forest areas to the east and north of the town form the protected area of Tuchola Landscape Park.
Settlement around Tuchola dates from 980, while the town was first mentioned in 1287, when the local church was consecrated by the archbishop of Gniezno Jakub Świnka. It was part of medieval Poland since the establishment of the state in the 10th century, and during its fragmentation it was ruled by the dukes of Gdańsk Pomerania. The place was one of the strongholds of the count of Nowe Peter Swienca, who owned a fortified domicile in the area. In 1330 Tuchola came into possession of the Teutonic Order. It received Chełmno law in 1346 from Heinrich Dusemer, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, although it probably received town rights before, when it was still part of the Kingdom of Poland. At that time, the town already had defensive walls, a castle, a town hall and the Gothic Church of St. Bartholomew.
After the Order's defeat in the Battle of Grunwald on July 14, 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army recaptured the town on November 5, 1410, but the Order regained the town in the First Peace of Thorn in 1411. In 1440 the town joined the Prussian Confederation, which opposed Teutonic rule, and at the request of which King Casimir IV Jagiellon signed the act of re-incorporation of the town and region to the Kingdom of Poland in 1454. The town became again part of Poland and Poles manned the castle. Tuchola became the seat of the local starosts, the first of which was Mikołaj Szarlejski. During the subsequent Thirteen Years' War, in 1464, a Polish-Teutonic battle was fought there, ending in a Polish victory. The Teutonic Order renounced claims to the town in the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466.