Znojmo is a former royal town and border fortress in southern Moravia, today the second-largest settlement in the South Moravian Region and a municipality with extended powers.
Znojmo lies on the border of southern Moravia and Lower Austria. According to the Association of Historic Settlements of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, it ranked after Brno and Olomouc as the third historical centre of Moravia and is today the second-largest settlement in the South Moravian Region [1]. The town is the gateway to Podyjí National Park [1].
History
The area of today's town was already settled in the Lower Palaeolithic, and settlement has been continuous since the Slavs arrived in Moravia in the 6th century [1]. In the 9th century an upland stronghold belonging to the Great Moravian Empire arose at Hradiště [1]. In the first half of the 11th century the administrative and spiritual centre shifted to the opposite promontory, where a castle was built as the seat of a Přemyslid prince, together with a main parish church, the Rotunda of the Virgin Mary, later dedicated to St Catherine [1]. Around the year 1100 the original church of St Nicholas was built [1].
The villages that had grown up below the castle were enclosed before 1226, and in that year King Ottokar I of Bohemia raised them to a royal town [1]. South of the town, at a ford across the Thaya, a Premonstratensian monastery was founded in 1190 [1]. German colonists were invited to the newly founded town, and Jews also formed a community of their own there [1]. In the 13th century representatives of religious orders arrived: the Minorites, the Dominicans and the Poor Clares [1]. After the Battle on the Marchfeld, the Bohemian king Ottokar II of Bohemia was temporarily buried in the Minorite monastery in Znojmo from 1279 to 1297 [1].
Supported by the ruling royal family, the town continued to develop and grow wealthy, and was gradually fortified with a system of walls and towers [1]. It kept the character of a fortress until the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, when parts of the walls were removed and building began to spread beyond the medieval ground plan [1]. A new building phase followed in the 19th century: a ring boulevard with landscaped greenery was laid out, along with a circular square from which seven streets radiate, gradually lined with blocks of residential houses [1]. The new development arose on the site of former vineyards, so the historic core, where many buildings in various architectural styles survive, avoided extensive demolition [1].
Znojmo was joined to emerging Czechoslovakia after Czechoslovak troops occupied it on 18 December 1918 [1]. In 1938 it was annexed to the Greater German Reich, and after the Second World War it became part of Czechoslovakia again [1].
What Znojmo is known for
According to the source, Znojmo has the most complete collection of Renaissance burghers' houses in the whole of the Czech Republic [1]. The town is also associated with the production of pickled gherkins and with the growing of grapevines and fruit, and today tourism promotion presents it as a "town full of history and a town of wine" [1].
Status and administration
Until the end of 2002 Znojmo was the seat of a district office. After the district offices were abolished and public administration was reformed, it has been, since 2003, a municipality with extended powers whose administrative district comprises 111 municipalities, and a municipality with a delegated municipal office for 78 municipalities [1]. The town is internally divided into nine local parts and ten cadastral areas [1]. The town centre is an urban heritage reserve [1].
In terms of transport, Znojmo is linked by first-class roads to Prague, Brno and Vienna, and passenger rail traffic is busiest in the direction of Vienna, Jihlava and Břeclav [1].