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Olomouc (Czech pronunciation: [ˈolomouts] ⓘ; German: Olmütz) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 105,000 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city in the country. It is the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region.
Located on the Morava River, the city is the ecclesiastical metropolis and was a historical co-capital city of Moravia, before having been occupied by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War. The historic city centre is well preserved and is protected as urban monument reservation. The Holy Trinity Column was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its quintessential Baroque style and symbolic value.
Olomouc consists of 26 municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census):
The origin of the name is unknown. According to the most frequently considered theory, it was derived from the personal name Olmút, meaning "Olmút's (castle, court)". Another theory says that the name was derived from the Proto-Slavic words *ol ('beer') and *mútit ('to make noise').
According to legend, there was a Roman fort founded by Roman legionnaires under the command of Julius Caesar. The fort was called Iuliomontium or Julimons, and the name Olomouc was derived from it. Although archaeologists have found traces of a camp of Roman legionnaires, the legend of the presence of Julius Caesar originated in the Renaissance period and nothing confirms it.
Olomouc is located about 61 kilometres (38 mi) northeast of Brno and 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Prague. It lies mostly in a flat fertile land of the Upper Morava Valley. The eastern spur of the municipal territory (the villages of Lošov, Radíkov and Svatý Kopeček) extends into the Nízký Jeseník range and includes the highest point of Olomouc, a hill at 444 m (1,457 ft) above sea level. The Litovelské Pomoraví Protected Landscape Area extends into the territory of Olomouc in the north.
The Morava River and the stream of Mlýnský potok, which is a branch of the Morava, flow through the city. The Bystřice flows into the Morava at the city centre. The Oskava briefly forms the northern municipal border, before it joins the Morava.
Lake Chomoutovské jezero, located in the northern tip of the municipal territory, was created by flooding a gravel quarry and has an area of 85 ha (210 acres). Together with the immediate surroundings, it is protected as a nature monument. The lake is an important stop for migratory birds and is home to one of the largest colonies of black-headed gulls and Mediterranean gulls in the country.
Olomouc's climate is classified as humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb; Trewartha: Dcbo). Among them, the annual average temperature is 9.6 °C (49.3 °F), the hottest month is July with a mean daily temperature 20.3 °C (68.5 °F), and the coldest month is January with −1.4 °C (29.5 °F). The annual precipitation is 532.3 millimetres (20.96 in), of which July is the wettest with 78.7 millimetres (3.10 in), while February is the driest with only 21.5 millimetres (0.85 in). The extreme temperature throughout the year ranged from −33.6 °C (−28.5 °F) on 11 February 1929 to 37.2 °C (99.0 °F) on 3 and 8 August 2013.
As early as the 7th century, a gord of the early Slavs developed in the present-day quarter of Povel. It was probably an administrative centre of a larger unit. Povel is considered one of the three most important Moravian localities of the early Middle Ages. In the early 9th century, the gord was conquered and completely disappeared.
A new centre, where the Great Moravian governor resided, developed at the gord at Předhradí, a quarter of the inner city (the eastern, smaller part of the medieval centre). This settlement survived the defeat of the Great Moravia (c. 907) and gradually became the capital of the province of Moravia.
The bishopric of Olomouc was founded in 1063. It was possibly re-founded because there are some unclear references to bishops of Moravia in the 10th century—if they were not only missionary bishops, but representatives of some remains of regular church organization, then it is very likely that these bishops had their seat in Olomouc. Centuries later in 1777, it was raised to the rank of an archbishopric. The bishopric was moved from the church of St. Peter (since destroyed) to the church of Saint Wenceslaus in 1141 (the date is still disputed, other suggestions are 1131, 1134) under bishop Jindřich Zdík. The bishop's palace was built in the Romanesque architectural style. The bishopric acquired large tracts of land, especially in northern Moravia, and was one of the richest in the area.
Olomouc became one of the most important settlements in Moravia and a seat of the Přemyslid government and one of the appanage princes. In 1306 King Wenceslas III stopped here on his way to Poland. He was going to fight Władysław I the Elbow-high to claim his rights to the Polish crown and was assassinated. With his death, the whole Přemyslid dynasty died out.
The city was officially founded in the mid-13th century and became one of the most important trade and power centres in the region. In the Middle Ages, it was the biggest town in Moravia and competed with Brno for the position of capital. Olomouc finally lost after the Swedes took the city and held it for eight years (1642–1650).
In 1235, the Mongols launched an invasion of Europe. After the Battle of Legnica in Poland, the Mongols carried their raids into Moravia, but were defensively defeated at the fortified town of Olomouc. The Mongols subsequently invaded and defeated Hungary.
In 1454 the city expelled its Jewish population as part of a wave of anti-Semitism, also seen in Spain and Portugal. The second half of the 15th century is considered the start of Olomouc's golden age. It hosted several royal meetings, and Matthias Corvinus was elected here as King of Bohemia (in fact anti-king) by the estates in 1469. In 1479 two kings of Bohemia (Vladislaus II and Matthias Corvinus) met here and concluded an agreement (Peace of Olomouc of 1479) for splitting the country.
Participating in the Protestant Reformation, Moravia became mostly Protestant. During the Thirty Years' War, in 1640 Olomouc was occupied by the Swedes for eight years. They left the city in ruins, and as a result it lost its predominant place in Moravia, becoming second to Brno.
In 1740 the town was captured and briefly held by the Prussians. Olomouc was fortified by Maria Theresa during the wars with Frederick the Great, who besieged the city unsuccessfully for seven weeks in 1758. In 1848 Olomouc was the scene of the emperor Ferdinand's abdication. Two years later, Austrian and German statesmen held a conference here called the Punctation of Olmütz. At the conference, they agreed to restore the German Confederation and Prussia accepted leadership by the Austrians.
In 1746 the first learned society in the lands under control of the Austrian Habsburgs, the Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis, was founded in Olomouc to spread Enlightenment ideas. Its monthly Monatliche Auszüge was the first scientific journal published in the Habsburg empire.
Largely because of its ecclesiastical links to Austria, Salzburg in particular, the city was influenced by German culture since the Middle Ages. Demographics before censuses can only be interpreted from other documents. The town's ecclesiastical constitution, the meetings of the Diet and the locally printed hymnal, were recorded in Czech in the mid-16th and 17th centuries. The first treatise on music in Czech was published in Olomouc in the mid-16th century. The political and social changes that followed the Thirty Years' War increased the influence of courtly Habsburg and Austrian/German-language culture. The "Germanification" of the town likely resulted from the cosmopolitan nature of the city; as the cultural, administrative and religious centre of the region, it drew officials, musicians and traders from all over Europe.
Despite these influences, Czech dominated, particularly in ecclesiastical publications throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. When the Austrian-born composer and musician Philip J. Rittler accepted a post at the Wenceslas Cathedral in the latter 17th century, he felt it necessary to learn Czech. With the continued dominance of the Habsburgs and migration of ethnic Germans into the area, the use of Czech declined. By the 19th century, the number of ethnic Germans in the city were recorded as three times higher than the number of Czechs.
After the 1848 revolution, the government rescinded its Jewish expulsion order of 1454. Jews returned to the city and, in 1897, built a synagogue. The Jewish population reached 1,676 in 1900.
Olomouc retained its defensive city walls almost until the end of the 19th century. This suited the city council, because demolishing the walls would have allowed for expansion of the city and attracted more Czechs from neighbouring villages. The city council preferred Olomouc to be smaller and predominantly German. Greater expansion came after World War I and the establishment of Czechoslovakia. In 1919 Olomouc annexed two neighbouring towns and 11 surrounding villages, gaining new space for additional growth and development.
Serious tensions arose between ethnic Czechs and Germans during both world wars. During World War II, the city was under German occupation and most of the city's ethnic German residents sided with the Nazis; the German-run city council renamed the main square (until then named after president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk) after Adolf Hitler. World War II brought a rise in anti-semitism and attacks on the Jews that reflected what was happening in Germany. On Kristallnacht (10 November 1938), townspeople destroyed the synagogue. In March 1939, city police arrested 800 Jewish men, and had some deported to the Dachau concentration camp. During 1942–1943, ethnic Germans sent the remaining Jews to Theresienstadt and other German concentration camps in occupied Poland. Fewer than 300 of the city's Jews survived the Holocaust. The Germans also established and operated a Gestapo prison in the city, and a forced labour camp in the Chválkovice district.
After Olomouc was liberated, Czech residents took back the original name of the city square. When the retreating German army passed through the city in the final weeks of the war, they shot at its 15th-century astronomical clock, leaving only a few pieces intact (these are held in the local museum). The city was restored to Czechoslovakia, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime with stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. In the 1950s, the clock was reconstructed under the influence of Soviet government; it features a procession of proletarians rather than saints. After the war, the government participated in the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the country, following the Allied leaders' Potsdam Agreement, which redefined the Central European borders, although many of these people's families had lived for two centuries in the region. There were the statue of the first president T. G. Masaryk reconstructed as a symbol of come back of democracy on Masaryk street after "velvet revolution" in 1990. Its inner city is the third-largest urban monument reservation in the country, after Prague.
The Olomouc agglomeration was defined as a tool for drawing money from the European Structural and Investment Funds. It is an area that includes the city and its surroundings, linked to the city by commuting and migration. It has about 401,000 inhabitants and also includes the cities of Přerov and Prostějov.
Public transport in Olomouc is provided by trams and buses.
The first train arrived in Olomouc on 17 October 1841 from Vienna. In 1845, the first omnibuses connected the railway station and the centre of Olomouc. In 1899, omnibuses were replaced with trams.
The main railway station in Olomouc (Olomouc hlavní nádraží) is an important railway junction. The city is connected with Prague, Ostrava, Brno, Zlín and Břeclav. Passenger trains of all categories operated by České dráhy, RegioJet and LEO Express make stops there.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Olomouc”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.