Ostrava is a statutory city in the north-east of the Czech Republic. Since 2000 it has been the seat of the region originally called the Ostrava Region and now named the Moravian-Silesian Region.[1] By population and area it is the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and it is divided into 23 city districts.[2] According to the Czech Statistical Office, it had 283,187 inhabitants on 1 January 2025.[3]*
Location
The city is named after the Ostravice River, which divides it into a Moravian and a Silesian part.[1] Ostrava lies in the Ostrava Basin; only its western part on the left bank of the Oder rises into the Vítkovice Uplands. Besides the Ostravice and the Oder, which form the boundary between Moravia and Silesia, the Opava and the Lučina also flow through the city. The elevation ranges from 208 to 336 m, and the border with Poland runs about 10 km north of the centre.[2]
History
Around 25,000 years ago mammoth hunters camped on Landek hill. In 1953 a 48 mm female figurine made of haematite, known as the Venus of Petřkovice, was found there. Prehistoric hunters burned black coal from seams on the surface here, the earliest documented use of coal in the world.[1]
Silesian (formerly Polish) Ostrava is mentioned in a charter of Pope Gregory IX of 1229, and Silesian Ostrava Castle above the confluence of the Lučina and the Ostravice in a charter of 1297. Moravian Ostrava is first mentioned in the will of Bishop Bruno of Schauenburg of Olomouc of 1267 and was a town by 1279 at the latest. In 1362 Charles IV granted it the right to a sixteen-day annual fair, and the walls were built in 1371–1376. From 1437 it belonged to the Hukvaldy estate. During the Thirty Years' War it was occupied by the Danes and from 1642 by the Swedes.[1]
Coal was discovered in 1763 in the Burňa valley in Polish Ostrava, and regular mining began in 1787. In 1828 Archbishop Rudolf of Habsburg of Olomouc founded ironworks in Vítkovice, and in 1847 Ostrava was connected to the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway. While fewer than two thousand people lived in Moravian Ostrava in 1830, fifty years later there were more than 13,000.[1] On 1 January 1924 Greater Ostrava was created by merging seven Moravian municipalities. German troops entered Moravian Ostrava on 14 March 1939, a day before the occupation of the rest of the republic. In August 1944 the city was damaged by air raids, and it was liberated on 30 April 1945.[1]
After 1945 Ostrava became the centre of Czechoslovak heavy industry, nicknamed “the steel heart of the republic”. From 1949 the Nová huť steelworks was built in Kunčice, and housing estates grew in Poruba, Zábřeh, Hrabůvka and other districts. In 1945 the Mining University was moved here from Příbram, and the University of Ostrava was established in 1991.[1] The last tub of coal came up from the Odra shaft in Přívoz on 30 June 1994, and the Vítkovice blast furnaces were shut down in 1998. In 1996 Ostrava became the seat of the Diocese of Ostrava-Opava, and the Basilica of the Divine Saviour, completed in 1889, was raised to a cathedral. In July 1997 the city was hit by a flood that caused damage of more than four billion crowns.[1]
Monuments
The New Town Hall was opened on 28 October 1930 and has a 75 m tower.[1] The Památkový katalog (Heritage Catalogue) of the National Heritage Institute describes it as a group of four buildings designed by Vladimír Fischer, Jan Rubý and Karel Kotas in 1923–1930; it has been a national cultural monument since 1 July 2024.[4] The coking plant in Vítkovice is documented from 1831, and the blast furnaces operated from 1835 to 1998. Together with the Hlubina mine they form a national cultural monument declared in 2002, and they are part of the Industrial Ensembles in Ostrava proposed for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.[5]
Culture and institutions
The city's stages include the Antonín Dvořák Theatre, the Jiří Myron Theatre, the Petr Bezruč Theatre, the Aréna Chamber Theatre and the Puppet Theatre; the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava has been giving concerts since 1954.[1] Regular radio broadcasting for Ostrava began on 1 July 1929; in August 1968 today's Czech Radio Ostrava broadcast uncensored news about the occupation from 21 to 28 August.[6] The University Hospital Ostrava (FNO), which cooperates with the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ostrava, is based on a site in Poruba.[7]
Chronology
- — Štěpánka Ranošová, an Ostrava actress, co-founder of the Petr Bezruč Theatre and holder of the Thalia Award for lifetime achievement, died at the age of 99. → Ostravan.cz Novinky.cz
Pages linking here
- Blesk Ordinace in Ostrava 2026
- Czech Radio Ostrava
- Milan Baroš
- Moravian-Silesian Region
- University Hospital Ostrava