You’re as likely to catch one out the corner of your eye as you are to stub your toe on the blighter.

Mostly bronze, often cheeky, and each about a foot tall, these are Wroclaw’s dwarves (or krasnale in Polish), and there are 163 of them dotted about the city in various guises (this is the official figure, though some sources claim there are as many as 350).

Two firefighting dwarves working together in the Polish city Credit: Alamy

It may sound like a contrived tourist gimmick that besieges a small Polish city with miniature cartoonish characters, but it only takes a few hours stroll around the Old Town and a couple of chance meetings with the fellows to convince otherwise. They are charming, remarkably imaginative and each represents a part of the city's daily life or history.

On a visit to the city last month, a bus from the airport dropped me off at the south-west corner of the Old Town, placing me by the Radio3 footbridge to cross the moat towards my hotel. The bridge was given its name in 2015 after Polish radio station Trójka, and the broadcaster is also commemorated with its own dwarf. Trójka, with headphones looped over his soft, pointed hat and a mic in hand, was the first of the 163 I spotted. He had recently been furnished with a now damp, blue chequered scarf, presumably to prepare for the winter ahead, and on a dreary, drizzly day he drew a smile.

A photo posted by Hugh Morris (@horatiomo) on Nov 20, 2016 at 1:41am PST

Why are they in Wroclaw?

The first dwarf to call Wroclaw home was “Papa Dwarf”, placed on Świdnicka Street in 2001. This father of the dwarves is slightly larger than the others, with a different style of construction, precedes his brethren by a few years, and carries a graver history and meaning.

Papa was placed on this main street into the city as it was here that the Orange Alternative, an anti-communist underground movement that claimed the dwarf as its symbol, used to meet in the Eighties to protest against the authoritarianism of Poland’s Soviet masters.

Wroclaw is perhaps best-known for its colourful square Credit: Fotolia/AP

By adopting the imagery of the dwarf, often in graffiti over government slogans, while maintaining a non-violent stance, the group brought a lightness and hope to the struggle against communism.

One guards the city’s dwarf museum - only open to those who can squeeze through a shin-high and foot-wide door

And so, in 2001, a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, of which Poland was a puppet state, Papa Dwarf took his place at the crossroads with Kazimierza Wielkiego.

In 2003 another dwarf was added to guard the city’s dwarf museum - only open to those who can squeeze through a shin-high and foot-wide door - before five more, among them a fencer and a butcher, were commissioned in 2005.

Telegraph Travel tracked down Tomasz Moczek, the local artist tasked with designing those five dwarves in 2005. What inspired him?

"From memory, from conversations, from literature, from the memory, from the childhood, from everything," he said. "I worked the day and the night, I thought only of it."

Tomasz says he is glad of the success of the dwarves and still creating new ones today.

The best dwarves

Telegraph Travel's personal favourites - not pictured but highly commended: the one in jail, the one tucked up in bed, and the veteran.

The boozehounds

Credit: Hugh Morris

The Sisyphean pair

A photo posted by ○ r s o l y a (@otthonbutik) on Oct 10, 2016 at 9:50am PDT

The gardeners

A photo posted by Ola (@decocode_pl) on Aug 28, 2016 at 1:32pm PDT

The "working from home"

A photo posted by Magdalena Halicz (@maghal5) on Aug 11, 2016 at 12:00am PDT

The dandy

Credit: Hugh Morris

The gaucho

Credit: Hugh Morris

The scholar

A photo posted by Telegraph Travel (@telegraphtravel) on Nov 21, 2016 at 3:56am PST

Where to find them

The city's tourist board has created a map, below, of the 52 available to see in the Old Town. As far as advice goes: keep your eyes peeled, more often that not, on the ground, in corners and beneath window ledges - but, watch where you're going. We, nor the dwarves, want to be responsbile for a sprained ankle on the cobbled streets.

The rest are found outside the Old Town, while there are six at the LG plant in Biskupice Podgórne, just outside the city.

Happy hunting.