Ostrava


Ostrava is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava, Ostravice and Lučina. Ostrava is the third largest city in the Czech Republic in terms of both population and area, the second largest city in the region of Moravia, and the largest city in the historical land of Czech Silesia. It straddles the border of the two historic provinces of Moravia and Silesia. The wider conurbation – which also includes the towns of Bohumín, Havířov, Karviná, Orlová, Petřvald and Rychvald – is home to about 500,000 people, making it the largest urban area in the Czech Republic apart from the capital Prague.
Ostrava grew in importance due to its position at the heart of a major coalfield, becoming an important industrial engine of the Austrian empire. During the 20th century it was known as the "steel heart" of Czechoslovakia thanks to its status as a coal-mining and metallurgical centre, but since the Velvet Revolution it has undergone radical and far-reaching changes to its economic base. Industries have been thoroughly restructured, and the last coal was mined in the city in 1994. However, remnants of the city's industrial past are visible in the Lower Vítkovice area, a former coal-mining, coke production and ironworks complex in the city centre which retains its historic industrial architecture. Lower Vítkovice has applied for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Ostrava is home to various cultural facilities including theatres and galleries. Various cultural and sporting events take place in Ostrava throughout the year, including the Colours of Ostrava music festival, the Janáček May classical music festival, the Summer Shakespeare Festival and NATO Days. Ostrava is home to two public universities: the Technical University of Ostrava and the University of Ostrava. In 2014 Ostrava was a European City of Sport. The city co-hosted the Ice Hockey World Championships in 2004, 2015, and 2024.

Administrative division

On 14 September 1990, Ostrava's City Authority approved the division of the city into 22 boroughs, effective 24 November that year. On 1 January 1994, Plesná separated from Poruba and became a separate borough. Since then, the city has been divided into 23 self-governing boroughs. In addition, Ostrava is divided into 37 municipal parts, 18 of them identically defined as boroughs :
  • Hošťálkovice
  • Hrabová
  • Krásné Pole
  • Lhotka
  • Mariánské Hory a Hulváky
  • *Mariánské Hory
  • *Hulváky
  • Martinov
  • Michálkovice
  • Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz
  • *Moravská Ostrava
  • *Přívoz
  • Nová Bělá
  • Nová Ves
  • Ostrava-Jih
  • *Bělský Les
  • *Dubina
  • *Hrabůvka
  • *Výškovice
  • *Zábřeh
  • Petřkovice
  • Plesná
  • Polanka nad Odrou
  • Poruba
  • Proskovice
  • Pustkovec
  • Radvanice a Bartovice
  • *Radvanice
  • *Bartovice
  • Slezská Ostrava
  • *Slezská Ostrava
  • *Antošovice
  • *Heřmanice
  • *Hrušov
  • *Koblov
  • *Kunčice
  • *Kunčičky
  • *Muglinov
  • Stará Bělá
  • Svinov
  • Třebovice
  • Vítkovice

    Symbols and logo

Coat of arms

The city's coat of arms features a blue shield with a rearing silver horse standing on a green lawn. The horse wears a golden saddle and a red coverlet. At the top right of the shield there is a golden rose with green leaves and a red core. The horse in the coat-of-arms wears no bridle. The oldest known depiction of this coat-of-arms is on a seal dating from 1426. The first coloured version dates from 1728. The horse is often interpreted as a symbol of Ostrava's position on a major trade route, or as a figure taken from the coat-of-arms of Ostrava's first vogt, while the golden rose probably comes from the family coat-of-arms of the bishop of Olomouc Stanislav I Thurzo. This explanation is supported by most modern literature.
Another theory suggests that the Bishop granted Ostrava the right to use the horse in its coat-of-arms out of gratitude for the assistance that the town provided to the people of the Bishop's estate in Hukvaldy when the estate was being looted and pillaged. Apparently the help came so quickly that the pillagers did not have time to attach bridles to their horses before making their escape. There is also a legend which tells of a siege of Ostrava during which the besieged townspeople released unbridled horses to run in circles around the town. This is said to have confused the attacking armies so much that they fled.

Marketing logo

In 2008, Ostrava's new marketing logo was unveiled. Designed by Studio Najbrt, the logo "OSTRAVA!!!" is used in public presentations of the city both in the Czech Republic and abroad. The three exclamation marks are meant to symbolise the dynamism, energy and self-confidence of Ostrava and its people. The light blue colour of the city's name is based on the heraldic tradition, while the exclamation marks are a contrasting darker blue.

History

The first written mention of Slezská Ostrava dates from 1229, when it was described as a settlement. The first mention of Moravian Ostrava in 1267 describes it as a township. Ostrava grew on the banks of the Ostrá River from which it took its name. The river still divides the city into two main parts: Moravian Ostrava and Silesian Ostrava. The settlement occupied a strategic position on the border between the two historic provinces of Moravia and Silesia and on the ancient trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea known as the Amber Road. Its location helped the town to grow and flourish.
However, Ostrava began to decline in importance after the Thirty Years' War, and it was occupied by Danish forces in 1626, and by Swedish forces from 1642 to 1650.
A turning point in Ostrava's history came in 1763 with the discovery of extensive deposits of high-quality bituminous coal on the Silesian bank of the Ostravice River. In 1828, the owner of the local estates, Rudolf Jan, the archbishop of Olomouc, established an ironworks, which was named after him as the Rudolfshütte. Later, the ironworks passed into the ownership of the Rothschild family and became known as the Vítkovice Ironworks. The company became the driving force behind Ostrava's industrial boom. By the second half of the 20th century, the city was nicknamed the country's "steel heart".
In 1931 the Jewish community in Ostrava numbered 6,865. About 8,000 Jews from the Ostrava district were murdered in the Holocaust during the German occupation in World War II. The Nisko Plan included the first deportation train transports of 1,301 Jews from Ostrava on 17 and 26 October 1939. In 1994, a Holocaust memorial to the Jewish victims of Ostrava was built in Milada Horáková Park.
During World War II the city was occupied by Germany. The occupiers operated a Gestapo prison in the city, and several forced labour camps, including three labour "education" camps, located in Moravská Ostrava, Vítkovice, and Kunčice, and the E21 subcamp of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp in the present-day district of Petřkovice.
After the war, the city's German-speaking population were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. 231 German-speaking citizens were killed in a massacre at an internment camp, known as the Hanke Lager Massacres. The liberation of Ostrava by the Red Army led to the city entering its greatest period of expansion. Initially, the new housing projects were on a relatively-small scale focusing on the Poruba district and featuring architecture in the Socialist realism style. Later, however, the authorities built larger-scale developments of prefabricated apartment blocks in Poruba and created a series of satellite estates to the south of the city. The city centre was gradually depopulated, and its people were moved out to the suburbs, as part of a long-term plan to destroy the city centre entirely and to turn the land over to coal-mining.
The 1990s brought a rapid decline in the city's traditional industrial sectors: iron, steel, chemicals and coal-mining. The last coal was mined on 30 June 1994, which was accompanied by major investments to rectify ecological damage done by decades of heavy industry. The projects ultimately brought major improvements in the city's environment and quality of life. Ostrava became an important tourist centre that offered easy access to the nearby Hrubý Jeseník and Moravian-Silesian Beskids mountains.
As well as hundreds of hectares of recultivated former mining land, the city also has numerous natural landscape features of interest, many of which are protected nature reserves. They include the Polanský Forest and the Polanská Meadows, both of which form part of the Poodří nature reserve.
A rare geological feature found in the city is the granite erratic boulders. Originally from Scandinavia, they were left behind after the last ice age, when the ice sheets retreated. Another feature is the Ema slag heap, an artificial hill made of mining waste that offers panoramic views. The waste is still burning deep beneath the surface, which gives the slag-heap its own microclimate.
On 10 December 2019, a shooting at a hospital in Ostrava left eight people dead, including the perpetrator.

Geography

Ostrava is located about east of Prague. It lies mostly in the Ostrava Basin lowland, only the southwestern part of the municipal territory extends into the Moravian Gate. Ostrava is mostly low-lying, with a highest point of above sea level. The city is situated at the meeting point of four rivers: Oder, Opava, Ostravice and Lučina. It differs from most neighbouring regions by the high concentration of industry, dense population and the geographical conditions of the Ostrava Basin. The Poodří Protected Landscape Area extends to the city's territory in the southwest.
Ostrava is 20.5 km across from north to south, and 20.1 km across from east to west.