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Top:Žilina Holy Trinity Cathedral, Mariánske námestie with burgher heritage houses in Mariánske Square,Middle: An inside view of Žilina St.Stephen Church, A heritage of Žilina Town Hall, St.Paul the Apostle and Jesuit Church,Bottom:Budatín Castle, Mirage Commerce Complex Center
The name is derived from Slavic/Slovak wordžila - a "(river) vein".[4][5] Žilina means "a place with many watercourses". Alternatively, it is a secondary name derived fromŽilinka river or from the name of the local people, Žilín/Žiliňane.[4]
The area around today's Žilina was inhabited in the lateStone Age (about 20,000 BC). In the 5th century,Slavs started to move into the area. However, the first written reference to Žilina was in 1208 asterra de Selinan. From the second half of the 10th century until 1918, it was part of theKingdom of Hungary.
In the middle of the 13th century,terra Sylna was the property of theCseszneky de Milvány family.[6] The city started to develop around 1300, and, according to records in 1312, it was already a town. In 1321, KingCharles I made Žilina a free royal town. On 7 May 1381, KingLouis I issuedPrivilegium pro Slavis, which made the Slav inhabitants equal to theGermans by allocating half of the seats at the city council to Slavs.[7] The town was burned in 1431 by theHussites.
During the 17th century, Žilina gained a position as a center of manufacturing, trade, and education, and, during theBaroque age, many monasteries and churches, as well as theBudatín Castle, were built. In theRevolutions of 1848, Slovak volunteers, part of the Imperial Army, won a battle near the city against Hungarian honveds and gardists.[citation needed]
The city boomed in the second half of the 19th century as new railway tracks were built: theKassa Oderberg Railway was finished in 1872 and the railway toBratislava (Pozsony in Hungarian) in 1883, and new factories started to spring up, such as the drapery factorySlovena (1891) and the Považie chemical works (1892).
It was one of the first municipalities to sign theMartin Declaration (30 October 1918), and until March 1919, it was the seat of the Slovak government. On 6 October 1938, shortly after theMunich Agreement, the autonomy of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia was declared in Žilina.
Duringthe Holocaust in Slovakia, tens of thousands of Jews were deported from Žilina.[8] Žilina was captured on 30 April 1945 byCzechoslovak andSoviet troops of the4th Ukrainian Front, after which it again became part of Czechoslovakia. After the war, the city continued its development with many new factories, schools, and housing projects being built. It was the seat of theŽilina Region from 1949 to 1960 and again since 1996.
Today, Žilina is the fourth largest city in Slovakia, the third most important industrial center, and the seat of auniversity, theŽilinská univerzita (founded in 1953). Since 1990, the historical center of the city has been largely restored, and the city has builttrolleybus lines.
Žilina lies in thenorth temperate zone and has acontinental climate with four distinct seasons. It is characterized by a significant variation between hot summers and cold, snowy winters. The average temperature in July is 18 °C (64 °F), in January, −4 °C (25 °F). The average annual rainfall is 600–700 mm (23.6–27.6 in); most of the rainfall occurs in June and in the first half of July. Snow cover lasts from 60 to 80 days per year.
Thecoat of arms of Žilina is a golden double-cross (so-calledcross of Lorraine) with roots and two golden stars on an olive-green background. The double-cross is of Byzantine origin and stems fromCyrillic-methodic tradition. This is one of the oldest municipal coats of arms, not only in Slovakia, but in Europe. It has been used as the city's symbol since 1378.
Žilina has a population of 82,664 (as of September 2020), with the population of the urban area of 108,114 and the population of the metro area of 159,729. According to the 2001census, 96.9% of inhabitants wereSlovaks, 1.6%Czechs, 0.2%Romani, 0.1%Hungarians and 0.1%Moravians. The religious makeup was 74.9%Roman Catholics, 16.7% people with noreligious affiliation, and 3.7%Lutherans.[9]
Žilina is the main industrial hub of the upper Váhriver basin region, with a fast-growing economy as north-west Slovakia's business center with large retail and construction sectors.
By far the biggest and most important employer is the Korean car makerKia Motors. By 2009, the plant produced 300,000 cars a year and had up to 3,000 employees. Kia Motors' direct investment in the Žilina car plant amounts to over 1.5 billionUSD. In 2009, the Žilina car plant produced Kia Cee'd, Kia Sportage, and Hyundai ix35 car models. Kia Motors is further upgrading its capacity to be ready to produce engines for a sister company,Hyundai, located atNošovice in theCzech Republic with a planned investment of US$200 million.
Žilina is also the seat of the biggest Slovak construction and transportation engineering company,Vahostav. The chemical industry is represented byPovažské chemické závody and Tento, apaper mill company.Siemens Mobility also has an engineering center in Žilina.[13]
Mariánske námestie with burgher housesBudatín CastleFrescoes inside the church of St Stephen the King
The historical center of the city, reconstructed in the early 1990s, is protected as a city monument reserve (Slovak:Mestská pamiatková rezervácia). It is centered on the Mariánske námestie andAndrej Hlinka squares. The Mariánske námestie square has 106 arcade passages and 44 burgher houses along the whole square.[14] It is dominated by the Church ofSt. Paul the Apostle, the old building of the city council, and the baroque statue ofthe Virgin Mary. Nearby is theChurch of the Holy Trinity, a sacral building built around 1400, which is since February 2008 the cathedral of theDiocese of Žilina.
TheChurch of Saint Stephen the King (Slovak:Kostol Sv. Štefana kráľa) is the oldest architectural relic of town Zilina,[15] located just 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) southwest from the center. It is one of the first Romanesque churches in Slovakia,[16] dating back to the years 1200–1250, according to the experts. The legend goes that the Hungarian KingIstván I himself ordered to build it. Valuable is the inner decoration of the church. Wall paintings originate from approximately 1260; in 1950, they were discovered and later on restored by the Žilina fine artist Mojmír Vlkoláček.[17] Nowadays, it is a popular place for wedding ceremonies.
Other landmarks around the city include:
Budatín Castle, housing Považie Museum with its tinker trade exhibition
The wooden Roman Catholic church of St. George in theTrnové section (one of the few outside north-eastern Slovakia)
The city is a starting point for various locations of western and eastern Slovakia, including hiking trails into theLesser Fatra andGreater Fatra mountains. Other locations of interest includeBojnice Castle,Strečno,Orava region, and the villages ofČičmany andVlkolínec.
Žilina is also home to two multi-3D digital theaters, in Mirage Shopping Centre - Ster Century Cinemas and Cinemax MAX in Max Shopping Centre OC Max Solinky.
Football (soccer) clubMŠK Žilina plays in the top Slovak divisionFortuna liga and is one of the most successful teams in recent years, having won five domestic titles and been runners-up three times between 2001 and 2010. The team's colors are yellow and green, taken from the city's flag. Home games are played at theStadium Pod Dubňom, which is situated at the edge of the city center in the neighborhood of theice hockey stadium. They played in the2010-11 UEFA Champions League in thegroup stage for the first time in their history.
Slovak professional road bicycle racer for World Tour teamBora-Hansgrohe, three-time world championPeter Sagan, was born in Žilina in 1990, and is considered one of cycling's most promising young talents, having earned many prestigious victories in his early twenties. He was the winner of the points classification in theTour de France from 2012 to 2016; as a result, Sagan became the first rider to win the classification in his first five attempts. In 2015, he was also the first Slovak cyclist to win theUCI Road World Championships.
The city is governed by amayor (Slovak:primátor) and acity council (Slovak:mestské zastupiteľstvo). The mayor is the head of the city and its chief executive, with a four-year term of office. The current mayor isPeter Fiabáne. The council is the city's legislative body, with 31 councillors. The last municipal election was held in 2014, and councillors are elected to four-year terms, concurrent with the mayor's. Žilina is divided into eight electoral districts, consisting of the following neighborhoods:[18]
Staré mesto, Hliny I-IV, Hliny VIII (5 councillors)
Žilina is the capital of one of eight considerably autonomousRegions of Slovakia.[19] It is also the capital of a smallerdistrict. TheŽilina District (Slovak:okres Žilina) is nested within the Žilina Region.
former building of Žilina University - Faculty of Nature ScienceMemorial dedicated toSaints Cyril and Methodius, with Holy Trinity Church in the background
The city is home to theUniversity of Žilina, which has seven faculties and 12,402 students, including 625 doctoral students.[20]
The city is an important international road junction, andŽilina railway station is a major rail junction.
Roads and railways connect the city withBratislava andPrievidza in the south,Čadca in the north, andMartin in the east. The construction of theD1, andD3motorways and their feeders continues towards Žilina.
The city is also served by internationalŽilina Airport, which is about 10 kilometres (6 miles) away from the city center.
Public transport within the city is operated by DPMZ[26] and consists ofbuses (since 1949) and trolleybuses (since 1994).
Night bus services started in Žilina in 1970 with the introduction of one route, the 50,[27] which continues to operate as the sole night bus in the city, operating from 22:55 to 04:22.[28][29] Route 50 makes a circuitous route of all major residential areas, and includes a stop atŽelezničná stanica, the principal railway station.[30]
^Krško, Jaromír (2011).Hydronymia horného povodia Váhu [Hydronymy of the Upper Váh Basin] (in Slovak). Banská Bystrica: Univerzita Mateja Bela. p. 125.
^Fatran, Gila (2007).Boj o prežitie [The Struggle for Survival] (in Slovak). Bratislava: SNM - Múzeum Židovskej Kultúry. pp. 180–181.ISBN978-80-8060-206-2.
^Brusis, Martin (2002). "Between EU Requirements, Competitive Politics, and National Traditions: Re-creating Regions in the Accession Countries of Central and Eastern Europe".Governance.15 (4):531–559.doi:10.1111/1468-0491.00200.
^"Žilinská univerzita"(PDF) (in Slovak). Ústav informácií a prognóz školstva. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2007-05-08. Retrieved2008-02-15.
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