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148-734: In the lower, west part of Slovakia , the Trnava region forms a territorial band between the Bratislava Region and the rest of Slovakia, between Austrian and Czech borders in the north and north-west and the Hungarian border in the south. The part north of the Little Carpathians is part of the Záhorie Lowland, with its two subdivisions: hilly Chvojnická pahorkatina and flat Borská nížina. In addition to these,

296-571: A customs union . A large bloc of countries, the Schengen Area , have also abolished internal border and immigration controls. Regular popular elections take place every five years within the EU; they are considered to be the second-largest democratic elections in the world after India's . The EU is the third-largest economy in the world. The place name Evros was first used by the ancient Greeks to refer to their northernmost province, which bears

444-510: A total population of about 745 million (about 10% of the world population ) in 2021; the third-largest after Asia and Africa. The European climate is affected by warm Atlantic currents, such as the Gulf Stream , which produce a temperate climate , tempering winters and summers, on much of the continent. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable producing more continental climates . European culture consists of

592-871: A German naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas , as a valley that once connected the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and subsequently was proposed as a natural boundary between continents. By the mid-19th century, there were three main conventions, one following the Don, the Volga–Don Canal and the Volga, the other following the Kuma–Manych Depression to the Caspian and then the Ural River, and the third abandoning

740-643: A Semitic term for west , this being either Akkadian erebu meaning 'to go down, set' (said of the sun) or Phoenician 'ereb 'evening, west', which is at the origin of Arabic maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav . Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor", while Beekes considers a connection to Semitic languages improbable. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to

888-818: A boundary along the Terek and Kuban rivers, so southwards from the Kuma and the Manych, but still with the Caucasus entirely in Asia. However, most geographers in the Soviet Union favoured the boundary along the Caucasus crest, and this became the common convention in the later 20th century, although the Kuma–Manych boundary remained in use in some 20th-century maps. Some view the separation of Eurasia into Asia and Europe as

1036-584: A civilian vicus and several farms of the villa rustica type. The name of this settlement was Gerulata . The military fort had an auxiliary cavalry unit, approximately 300 horses strong, modelled after the Cananefates . The remains of Roman buildings have also survived in Stupava , Devín Castle , Bratislava Castle Hill, and the Bratislava- Dúbravka suburb. Near the northernmost line of

1184-406: A large land mass completely or almost completely surrounded by water at its borders. Prior to the adoption of the current convention that includes mountain divides, the border between Europe and Asia had been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity , but always as a series of rivers, seas and straits that were believed to extend an unknown distance east and north from

1332-591: A lasting legacy in Central and Eastern Europe. The Glagolitic script and its successor Cyrillic were disseminated to other Slavic countries, charting a new path in their sociocultural development . Following the disintegration of the Great Moravian Empire at the turn of the tenth century, the Hungarians annexed the territory comprising modern Slovakia. After their defeat on the river Lech ,

1480-528: A period of relative prosperity. There was progress in not only the development of the country's economy but also culture and educational opportunities. Yet the Great Depression caused a sharp economic downturn, followed by political disruption and insecurity in Europe. In the 1930s, Czechoslovakia came under continuous pressure from the revanchist governments of Germany, Hungary and Poland who used

1628-763: A precise eastern boundary of Europe arises in the Early Modern period, as the eastern extension of Muscovy began to include North Asia . Throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, the traditional division of the landmass of Eurasia into two continents, Europe and Asia, followed Ptolemy, with the boundary following the Turkish Straits , the Black Sea , the Kerch Strait , the Sea of Azov and

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1776-543: A range of national and regional cultures, which form the central roots of the wider Western civilisation , and together commonly reference ancient Greece and ancient Rome , particularly through their Christian successors , as crucial and shared roots. Beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, Christian consolidation of Europe in the wake of the Migration Period marked

1924-658: A residue of Eurocentrism : "In physical, cultural and historical diversity, China and India are comparable to the entire European landmass, not to a single European country. [...]." During the 2.5 million years of the Pleistocene , numerous cold phases called glacials ( Quaternary ice age ), or significant advances of continental ice sheets, in Europe and North America, occurred at intervals of approximately 40,000 to 100,000 years. The long glacial periods were separated by more temperate and shorter interglacials which lasted about 10,000–15,000 years. The last cold episode of

2072-674: A result of the Yalta Conference , Czechoslovakia came under the influence and later under direct occupation of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact , after a coup in 1948 . 8,240 people went to forced labour camps in 1948–1953. Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere . It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to

2220-685: A result, the Reconquista took the greater part of eight hundred years, in which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos, and Bermudos would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders. During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe, respectively. Eventually

2368-477: A rival continuation of the Magyar state that practised religious tolerance and normally had Ottoman backing. Upper Hungary, modern Slovakia, became the site of frequent wars between Catholics in the west territory and Protestants in the east, as well as against Turks; the frontier was on a constant state of military alert and heavily fortified by castles and citadels often manned by Catholic German and Slovak troops on

2516-520: A series of outposts around and just south of the Danube , the largest of which were known as Carnuntum (whose remains are on the main road halfway between Vienna and Bratislava ) and Brigetio (present-day Szőny at the Slovak-Hungarian border). Such Roman border settlements were built on the present area of Rusovce , currently a suburb of Bratislava . The military fort was surrounded by

2664-806: A time. The territory of Slovakia was liberated by Soviet and Romanian forces by the end of April 1945. After World War II, Czechoslovakia was reconstituted and Jozef Tiso was executed in 1947 for collaboration with the Nazis. More than 80,000 Hungarians and 32,000 Germans were forced to leave Slovakia, in a series of population transfers initiated by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference . Out of about 130,000 Carpathian Germans in Slovakia in 1938, by 1947 only some 20,000 remained. The NKVD arrested and deported over 20,000 people to Siberia As

2812-401: Is also evidence that Homo sapiens arrived in Europe around 54,000 years ago, some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. The earliest sites in Europe dated 48,000 years ago are Riparo Mochi (Italy), Geissenklösterle (Germany) and Isturitz (France). The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock, increased numbers of settlements and

2960-714: Is an accepted version of this page – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  –  [ Legend ] Slovakia , officially the Slovak Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Europe . It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to

3108-620: Is around 49%, represented by inhabitants living in 16 towns. According to the 2001 census, the region had 551,003 inhabitants, with Slovaks forming a majority (73.9%), but there is a significant Hungarian minority in the south (23.7%), forming a majority in the Dunajská Streda District (87%) and are notably represented in the Galanta District (41%). Other minorities are the Czechs and Roma (<1%). The region

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3256-488: Is closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is considered part of Europe politically and it is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of North-western Africa for centuries, but now it is considered to be part of Europe as well. "Europe", as used specifically in British English , may also refer to Continental Europe exclusively. The term "continent" usually implies the physical geography of

3404-562: Is generally considered a transcontinental country divided entirely by water, while Russia and Kazakhstan are only partly divided by waterways. France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain are also transcontinental (or more properly, intercontinental, when oceans or large seas are involved) in that their main land areas are in Europe while pockets of their territories are located on other continents separated from Europe by large bodies of water. Spain, for example, has territories south of

3552-642: Is not known what happened with both Mojmír II and Svatopluk II because they are not mentioned in written sources after 906. In three battles (4–5 July and 9 August 907) near Bratislava , the Magyars routed Bavarian armies. Some historians put this year as the date of the break-up of the Great Moravian Empire, due to the Hungarian conquest; other historians take the date a little bit earlier (to 902). Great Moravia left behind

3700-736: Is primarily known for its collaboration with Nazi Germany, which included sending troops to the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941. On 24 November 1940, Slovakia joined the Axis when its leaders signed the Tripartite Pact . The country was strongly influenced by Germany and gradually became a puppet regime in many respects. Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile sought to reverse

3848-432: Is quite productive in both industry and agriculture. The proximity to the capital city of Bratislava is an asset, as many Trnava residents travel daily to work there. Lately, multinational manufacturing companies such as Peugeot or Samsung , Schäffler, ZF Slovakia , Vaillant Industrial and Bekaert settled in the region. The current governor of the Trnava region is Jozef Viskupič ( OĽaNO ). He won with 42,9 % of

3996-478: Is sometimes considered to mark the end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE; the closure of the pagan Platonic Academy of Athens in 529 CE; or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century CE. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe. During

4144-422: Is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent compared to any clear-cut definition of the term "continent". The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border between Europe and Asia does not follow any state boundaries and now only follows a few bodies of water. Turkey

4292-793: The Americas , almost all of Africa and Oceania , and the majority of Asia. The Age of Enlightenment , the French Revolution , and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally, politically, and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution , which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe and eventually

4440-641: The Avar Khaghanate . In the 7th century, the Slavs played a significant role in the creation of Samo's Empire . In the 9th century, the Avar Khaghanate dissolved, and the Slavs established the Principality of Nitra , which was later conquered by the Principality of Moravia , leading to the formation of Great Moravia . In the 10th century, after the dissolution of Great Moravia, the territory

4588-500: The Bosporus Strait . Europe covers about 10.18 million km (3.93 million sq mi), or 2% of Earth's surface (6.8% of land area), making it the second-smallest continent (using the seven-continent model ). Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states , of which Russia is the largest and most populous , spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had

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4736-845: The Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church , as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox churches and to the Islamic world . A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam , and limited to northern Iberia ,

4884-517: The Don (ancient Tanais ). But maps produced during the 16th to 18th centuries tended to differ in how to continue the boundary beyond the Don bend at Kalach-na-Donu (where it is closest to the Volga, now joined with it by the Volga–Don Canal ), into territory not described in any detail by the ancient geographers. Around 1715, Herman Moll produced a map showing the northern part of the Ob River and

5032-630: The East . This divide ended with the Revolutions of 1989 , the fall of the Berlin Wall , and the dissolution of the Soviet Union , which allowed European integration to advance significantly. European integration is being advanced institutionally since 1948 with the founding of the Council of Europe , and significantly through the realisation of the European Union (EU), which represents today

5180-731: The Egri , Budin and Uyvar eyalets . Thököly 's kuruc rebels from the Principality of Upper Hungary fought alongside the Turks against the Austrians and Poles at the Battle of Vienna of 1683 led by John III Sobieski . As the Turks withdrew from Hungary in the late 17th century, the importance of the territory composing modern Slovakia decreased, although Pressburg retained its status as

5328-439: The European population at the time. The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews , beggars and lepers . The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until

5476-518: The Gravettian culture, principally in the river valleys of Nitra , Hron , Ipeľ , Váh and as far as the city of Žilina , and near the foot of the Vihorlat , Inovec, and Tribeč mountains, as well as in the Myjava Mountains. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth bone (22,800 BCE), the famous Venus of Moravany . The statue was found in the 1940s in Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany . Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of

5624-460: The Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BCE gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BCE, the year of the first Olympic Games . Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and rationalist culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The Greek city-state,

5772-405: The Hallstatt period disappeared in Slovakia during the century before the middle of first millennium BCE, after strife between the Scytho -Thracian people and locals, resulting in abandonment of the old hill-forts. Relatively depopulated areas soon caught the interest of emerging Celtic tribes, who advanced from the south towards the north, following the Slovak rivers, peacefully integrating into

5920-417: The Hunnic empire . In 568, a Turko-Mongol tribal confederacy, the Avars , conducted its invasion into the Middle Danube region. The Avars occupied the lowlands of the Pannonian Plain and established an empire dominating the Carpathian Basin . In 623 , the Slavic population living in the western parts of Pannonia seceded from their empire after a revolution led by Samo , a Frankish merchant. After 626,

6068-400: The Inquisition against heretics. In the Iberian Peninsula , the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada in 1492 , ending over seven centuries of Islamic rule in the south-western peninsula. In the east, a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims, and reconquered the Balkans. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th to

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6216-442: The Irtysh River , a major tributary of the Ob, as components of a series of partly-joined waterways taking the boundary between Europe and Asia from the Turkish Straits, and the Don River all the way to the Arctic Ocean. In 1721, he produced a more up to date map that was easier to read. However, his proposal to adhere to major rivers as the line of demarcation was never taken up by other geographers who were beginning to move away from

6364-410: The Little Carpathians . During Hallstatt times, monumental burial mounds were erected in western Slovakia, with princely equipment consisting of richly decorated vessels, ornaments and decorations. The burial rites consisted entirely of cremation. Common people were buried in flat urnfield cemeteries. A special role was given to weaving and the production of textiles. The local power of the "Princes" of

6512-419: The Mediterranean Sea —namely, Ceuta and Melilla —which are parts of Africa and share a border with Morocco. According to the current convention, Georgia and Azerbaijan are transcontinental countries where waterways have been completely replaced by mountains as the divide between continents. The first recorded usage of Eurṓpē as a geographic term is in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo , in reference to

6660-490: The Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge , were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe. The modern native populations of Europe largely descend from three distinct lineages: Mesolithic hunter-gatherers , descended from populations associated with the Paleolithic Epigravettian culture; Neolithic Early European Farmers who migrated from Anatolia during the Neolithic Revolution 9,000 years ago; and Yamnaya Steppe herders who expanded into Europe from

6808-400: The Middle Paleolithic era (200,000–80,000 BCE) come from the Prévôt (Prepoštská) cave in Bojnice and from other nearby sites. The most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium (c. 200,000 BCE), discovered near Gánovce , a village in northern Slovakia. Archaeologists have found prehistoric human skeletons in the region, as well as numerous objects and vestiges of

6956-668: The Munich Agreement and the subsequent German occupation of Czechoslovakia and to return the Republic to its 1937 boundaries. The government operated from London and it was ultimately considered, by those countries that recognised it, the legitimate government for Czechoslovakia throughout the Second World War. As part of the Holocaust in Slovakia , 75,000 Jews out of 80,000 who remained on Slovak territory after Hungary had seized southern regions were deported and taken to German death camps . Thousands of Jews, Gypsies and other politically undesirable people remained in Slovak forced labour camps in Sereď , Vyhne, and Nováky. Tiso, through

7104-404: The Myjava Hills and the White Carpathians reach into the area. The fertile Danubian Lowland is located south of the Little Carpathians, again with two subdivisions: the Danubian Flat in the south, containing river island of Žitný ostrov (Rye Island) and the Danubian Hills in the north, where it also borders the Považský Inovec range app. on the line Hlohovec - Piešťany - border with

7252-427: The Neandertal valley in Germany ) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago (115,000 years ago it is found already in the territory of present-day Poland ) and disappeared from the fossil record about 40,000 years ago, with their final refuge being the Iberian Peninsula. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans ( Cro-Magnons ), who seem to have appeared in Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago. However, there

7400-432: The Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks , caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north, and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east. Like many other parts of Eurasia , these territories were overrun by the Mongols . The invaders, who became known as Tatars , were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established

7548-409: The Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia in the context of Indo-European migrations 5,000 years ago. The European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BCE in Greece with the Minoan civilisation on Crete , the first advanced civilisation in Europe. The Minoans were followed by the Myceneans , who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BCE, ushering the European Iron Age . Iron Age colonisation by

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7696-545: The Principality of Nitra was given to his nephew Svätopluk as an appanage . The rebellious prince allied himself with the Franks and overthrew his uncle in 870. Similarly to his predecessor, Svätopluk I (871–894) assumed the title of the king ( rex ). During his reign, the Great Moravian Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, when not only present-day Moravia and Slovakia but also present-day northern and central Hungary , Lower Austria , Bohemia , Silesia , Lusatia , southern Poland and northern Serbia belonged to

7844-406: The Serbian Principality (later Kingdom and Empire ), and the Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of Croatia ). To the east, Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the religion of state. Further east, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but

7992-458: The Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice, Hubina, and Radošina. These findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and Central Europe . During the Bronze Age , the geographical territory of modern-day Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BCE. Major cultural, economic, and political development can be attributed to

8140-488: The Treaty of Saint Germain in 1919 and Treaty of Trianon in 1920. In the peace following the World War, Czechoslovakia emerged as a sovereign European state. It provided what were at the time rather extensive rights to its minorities. During the Interwar period , democratic Czechoslovakia was allied with France, and also with Romania and Yugoslavia ( Little Entente ); however, the Locarno Treaties of 1925 left East European security open. Both Czechs and Slovaks enjoyed

8288-407: The Tripartite Pact . The local Jewish population was heavily persecuted, with almost 70,000 Jews being murdered or deported . Internal opposition to the fascist government's policies culminated in the Slovak National Uprising , itself triggered by the Nazi German occupation of the country. Although the uprising was eventually suppressed, partisan resistance continued, and Czechoslovak independence

8436-490: The Velvet Revolution peacefully ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia, sometimes referred to as the Velvet Divorce . Slovakia is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy . The country maintains a combination of a market economy with a comprehensive social security system, providing citizens with universal health care , free education , and one of

8584-426: The decline of the Roman Empire , Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the " Age of Migrations ". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Ostrogoths , Visigoths , Goths , Vandals , Huns , Franks , Angles , Saxons , Slavs , Avars , Bulgars , Vikings , Pechenegs , Cumans , and Magyars . Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as

8732-418: The independence for the territories of Bohemia , Moravia , Silesia , Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and proclaimed a common state, Czechoslovakia . In 1919, during the chaos following the break-up of Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia was formed with numerous Germans , Slovaks , Hungarians and Ruthenians within the newly set borders. The borders were set by

8880-432: The last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago. Earth is currently in an interglacial period of the Quaternary, called the Holocene . Homo erectus georgicus , which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia , is the earliest hominin to have been discovered in Europe. Other hominin remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca , Spain . Neanderthal man (named after

9028-517: The polis , was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece. In 508 BCE, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens . The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy , humanism and rationalism under Aristotle , Socrates and Plato ; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides ; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with

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9176-402: The "Dark Ages". Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this, very few written records survive. Much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Western Europe, though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire. While the Roman empire in

9324-411: The "Land of the Slavs " ( Slovensko in Slovak stemming from the older form Sloven/Slovienin ). As such, it is a cognate of the words Slovenia and Slavonia . In medieval Latin, German, and even some Slavic sources, the same name has often been used for Slovaks, Slovenes, Slavonians, and Slavs in general. According to one of the theories, a new form of national name formed for the ancestors of

9472-461: The 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000. The Empire was weakened following the defeat at Manzikert , and was weakened considerably by the sack of Constantinople in 1204 , during the Fourth Crusade . Although it would recover Constantinople in 1261, Byzantium fell in 1453 when Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Empire . In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as

9620-401: The 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480, and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia . The state was consolidated under Ivan III the Great and Ivan the Terrible , steadily expanding to the east and south over the next centuries. The Great Famine of 1315–1317

9768-444: The 18th century. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence , and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often translated from Arabic into Latin . The Renaissance spread across Europe between

9916-400: The 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens , the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilisation. Greece was followed by Rome , which left its mark on law , politics , language , engineering , architecture , government , and many more key aspects in western civilisation. By 200 BCE, Rome had conquered Italy and over

10064-478: The Avar power started a gradual decline but its reign lasted to 804. The Slavic tribes settled in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the fifth century. Western Slovakia was the centre of Samo 's empire in the seventh century. A Slavic state known as the Principality of Nitra arose in the eighth century and its ruler Pribina had the first known Christian church of the territory of present-day Slovakia consecrated by 828. Together with neighbouring Moravia ,

10212-421: The British Isles, France, Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy. The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance : Europa often figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin . The transition of Europe to being a cultural term as well as a geographic one led to the borders of Europe being affected by cultural considerations in

10360-448: The Don altogether, following the Greater Caucasus watershed to the Caspian. The question was still treated as a "controversy" in geographical literature of the 1860s, with Douglas Freshfield advocating the Caucasus crest boundary as the "best possible", citing support from various "modern geographers". In Russia and the Soviet Union , the boundary along the Kuma–Manych Depression was the most commonly used as early as 1906. In 1958,

10508-427: The Early Middle Ages, and soon spread throughout Europe. A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament . The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church . Through monasteries and cathedral schools , the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe. The Papacy reached

10656-559: The East, especially relating to areas under Byzantine, Ottoman, and Russian influence. Such questions were affected by the positive connotations associated with the term Europe by its users. Such cultural considerations were not applied to the Americas, despite their conquest and settlement by European states. Instead, the concept of "Western civilization" emerged as a way of grouping together Europe and these colonies. The question of defining

10804-531: The European post-classical Middle Ages . The Italian Renaissance spread in the continent a new humanist interest in art and science which led to the modern era . Since the Age of Discovery , led by Spain and Portugal , Europe played a predominant role in global affairs with multiple explorations and conquests around the world. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers colonised at various times

10952-707: The Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I . Charlemagne , a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed " Holy Roman Emperor " by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire , which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe. East Central Europe saw the creation of the first Slavic states and

11100-564: The German cleric Wiching the Bishop of Nitra . After the death of Prince Svatopluk in 894, his sons Mojmír II (894–906?) and Svatopluk II succeeded him as the Prince of Great Moravia and the Prince of Nitra respectively. However, they started to quarrel for domination of the whole empire. Weakened by an internal conflict as well as by constant warfare with Eastern Francia , Great Moravia lost most of its peripheral territories. In

11248-520: The Great 's efforts to make Russia more European, ignored the whole boundary question with his claim that neither Russia, Scandinavia, northern Germany, nor Poland were fully part of Europe. Since then, many modern analytical geographers like Halford Mackinder have declared that they see little validity in the Ural Mountains as a boundary between continents. The mapmakers continued to differ on

11396-697: The Habsburg side. By 1648, Slovakia was not spared the Counter-Reformation , which brought the majority of its population from Lutheranism back to Roman Catholicism . In 1655, the printing press at the Trnava university produced the Jesuit Benedikt Szöllősi's Cantus Catholici, a Catholic hymnal in Slovak that reaffirmed links to the earlier works of Cyril and Methodius. The Ottoman wars ,

11544-637: The Hungarian state. The ethnic composition of Slovakia became more diverse with the arrival of the Carpathian Germans in the 13th century and the Jews in the 14th century. A significant decline in the population resulted from the invasion of the Mongols in 1241 and the subsequent famine. However, in medieval times the area of Slovakia was characterised by German and Jewish immigration, burgeoning towns, construction of numerous stone castles, and

11692-647: The Hungarians abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in the centre of the Carpathian valley, slowly adopting Christianity and began to build a new state—the Hungarian kingdom . In the years 1001–1002 and 1018–1029, Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Poland , having been conquered by Boleslaus I the Brave . After the territory of Slovakia was returned to Hungary, a semi-autonomous polity continued to exist (or

11840-655: The Levant and North Africa and making inroads into Asia Minor . In the mid-7th century, following the Muslim conquest of Persia , Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region. Over the next centuries Muslim forces took Cyprus , Malta , Crete , Sicily , and parts of southern Italy . Between 711 and 720, most of the lands of the Visigothic Kingdom of Iberia were brought under Muslim rule—save for small areas in

11988-648: The Mediterranean Sea without the inclusion of any mountain ranges. Cartographer Herman Moll suggested in 1715 Europe was bounded by a series of partly-joined waterways directed towards the Turkish straits, and the Irtysh River draining into the upper part of the Ob River and the Arctic Ocean . In contrast, the present eastern boundary of Europe partially adheres to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, which

12136-633: The Osi and Cotini , existed in western and central Slovakia from 8–6 BCE to 179 CE. In the second and third centuries CE, the Huns began to leave the Central Asian steppes . They crossed the Danube in 377 CE and occupied Pannonia , which they used for 75 years as their base for launching looting-raids into Western Europe. However, Attila's death in 453 brought about the disappearance of

12284-805: The Roman hinterlands, the Limes Romanus , there existed the winter camp of Laugaricio (modern-day Trenčín ) where the Auxiliary of Legion II fought and prevailed in a decisive battle over the Germanic Quadi tribe in 179 CE during the Marcomannic Wars . The Kingdom of Vannius , a kingdom founded by the Germanic Suebi tribes of Quadi and Marcomanni , as well as several small Germanic and Celtic tribes , including

12432-774: The Slavic vernacular. On Rastislav's request, two brothers, Byzantine officials and missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius came in 863. Cyril developed the first Slavic alphabet and translated the Gospel into the Old Church Slavonic language. Rastislav was also preoccupied with the security and administration of his state. Numerous fortified castles built throughout the country are dated to his reign and some of them (e.g.,  Dowina , sometimes identified with Devín Castle ) are also mentioned in connection with Rastislav by Frankish chronicles. During Rastislav's reign,

12580-507: The Slovaks between the 13th and 14th century, possibly due to foreign influence; the Czech word Slovák (in medieval sources from 1291 onward). This form slowly replaced the name for the male members of the community, but the female name ( Slovenka ), reference to the lands inhabited ( Slovensko ) and the name of the language ( slovenčina ) all remained the same, with their base in

12728-801: The Soviet Geographical Society formally recommended that the boundary between the Europe and Asia be drawn in textbooks from Baydaratskaya Bay , on the Kara Sea , along the eastern foot of Ural Mountains, then following the Ural River until the Mugodzhar Hills , and then the Emba River ; and Kuma–Manych Depression, thus placing the Caucasus entirely in Asia and the Urals entirely in Europe. The Flora Europaea adopted

12876-644: The State became federalised, with Diets in Slovakia and Ruthenia. The remainder of Czechoslovakia was renamed Czecho-Slovakia and promised a greater degree of Slovak political autonomy. This, however, failed to materialise. Parts of southern and eastern Slovakia were also reclaimed by Hungary at the First Vienna Award of November 1938. After the Munich Agreement and its Vienna Award , Nazi Germany threatened to annex part of Slovakia and allow

13024-509: The Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary. The Roman Empire did not attach a strong identity to the concept of continental divisions. However, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire , the culture that developed in its place , linked to Latin and the Catholic church, began to associate itself with the concept of "Europe". The term "Europe" is first used for a cultural sphere in

13172-585: The Trenčín Region. Major rivers are the Danube on the Hungarian border, with part of the Gabčíkovo Dam , Little Danube , which creates with Danube the island of Žitný ostrov, Váh in the east, Dudváh in the centre, and Morava River in the north-west, along the Austrian and Czech borders. The region borders: Austrian Lower Austria and Czech South Moravian Region in the north-west, Trenčín Region in

13320-551: The adoption of Christianity ( c. 1000 CE) . The powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under Svatopluk I and causing a series of armed conflicts with East Francia . Further south, the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted Christianity : the First Bulgarian Empire ,

13468-470: The aggrieved minorities in the country as a useful vehicle. Revision of the borders was called for, as Czechs constituted only 43% of the population. Eventually, this pressure led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which allowed the majority ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland , borderlands of Czechoslovakia, to join with Germany. The remaining minorities stepped up their pressures for autonomy and

13616-648: The basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia and brought the Christian church under state control. From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were severely weakened due to the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars , the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking

13764-563: The boundary between the lower Don and Samara well into the 19th century. The 1745 atlas published by the Russian Academy of Sciences has the boundary follow the Don beyond Kalach as far as Serafimovich before cutting north towards Arkhangelsk , while other 18th- to 19th-century mapmakers such as John Cary followed Strahlenberg's prescription. To the south, the Kuma–Manych Depression was identified c.  1773 by

13912-734: The capital of Hungary until 1848 when it was transferred back to Buda. During the revolution of 1848–49 , the Slovaks supported the Austrian Emperor , hoping for independence from the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy , but they failed to achieve their aim. Thereafter, relations between the nationalities deteriorated (see Magyarisation ), culminating in the secession of Slovakia from Hungary after World War I. On 18 October 1918, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , Milan Rastislav Štefánik and Edvard Beneš declared in Washington, D.C.

14060-590: The continent The prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century. Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the east and north-east are usually taken to be the Ural Mountains , the Ural River , and the Caspian Sea ; to the south-east, the Caucasus Mountains , the Black Sea , and

14208-573: The continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu ( 歐洲 / 欧洲 ), which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu ( 歐羅巴洲 ) ( zhōu means "continent"); a similar Chinese-derived term Ōshū ( 欧州 ) is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, Ōshū Rengō ( 欧州連合 ) , despite the katakana Yōroppa ( ヨーロッパ ) being more commonly used. In some Turkic languages,

14356-640: The continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar , separating it from Northwest Africa , to the Don, separating it from Asia. The convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of the Roman era used by Roman-era authors such as Posidonius , Strabo , and Ptolemy , who took

14504-461: The cultivation of the arts. The arrival of German element sometimes proved a problem for the autochthonous Slovaks (and even Hungarians in the broader Hungary), since they often quickly gained most power in medieval towns, only to later refuse to share it. Breaking of old customs by Germans often resulted in national quarrels. One of which had to be sorted out by the king Louis I. with the proclamation Privilegium pro Slavis (Privilege for Slovaks) in

14652-584: The development of major commercial routes along the coast of the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas . The growing wealth and independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in the European scene. The Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in

14800-483: The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , the state of Czechoslovakia was established, incorporating Slovakia. In the lead up to World War II , local fascist parties gradually came to power in the Slovak lands, and the first Slovak Republic was established as a clerical fascist client state under the control of Nazi Germany . In 1940, the country joined the Axis when its leaders signed

14948-544: The empire, but the exact borders of his domains are still disputed by modern authors. Svatopluk also withstood attacks of the Magyar tribes and the Bulgarian Empire , although sometimes it was he who hired the Magyars when waging war against East Francia . In 880, Pope John VIII set up an independent ecclesiastical province in Great Moravia with Archbishop Methodius as its head. He also named

15096-590: The epic poems of Homer ; in drama with Sophocles and Euripides ; in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen ; and in science with Pythagoras , Euclid , and Archimedes . In the course of the 5th century BCE, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars , considered a pivotal moment in world history, as

15244-584: The following two centuries it conquered Greece , Hispania ( Spain and Portugal ), the North African coast, much of the Middle East , Gaul ( France and Belgium ), and Britannia ( England and Wales ). Expanding from their base in central Italy beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans gradually expanded to eventually rule the entire Mediterranean basin and Western Europe by the turn of

15392-577: The forms Slovakia and Schlowakei starting to appear in the 16th century. The present Slovak form Slovensko is first attested in the year 1675. The oldest surviving human artefacts from Slovakia are found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom and are dated at 270,000 BCE, in the Early Paleolithic era. These ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia. Other stone tools from

15540-490: The granting of presidential exceptions, allowed between 1,000 and 4,000 people crucial to the war economy to avoid deportations. Under Tiso's government and Hungarian occupation, the vast majority of Slovakia's pre-war Jewish population (between 75,000 and 105,000 individuals including those who perished from the occupied territory) were murdered. The Slovak state paid Germany 500 RM per every deported Jew for "retraining and accommodation" (a similar but smaller payment of 30 RM

15688-724: The height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land . In Europe itself, the Church organised

15836-399: The idea of water boundaries as the only legitimate divides between Europe and Asia. Four years later, in 1725, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg was the first to depart from the classical Don boundary. He drew a new line along the Volga , following the Volga north until the Samara Bend , along Obshchy Syrt (the drainage divide between the Volga and Ural Rivers ), then north and east along

15984-532: The latter waterway to its source in the Ural Mountains . At this point he proposed that mountain ranges could be included as boundaries between continents as alternatives to nearby waterways. Accordingly, he drew the new boundary north along Ural Mountains rather than the nearby and parallel running Ob and Irtysh rivers. This was endorsed by the Russian Empire and introduced the convention that would eventually become commonly accepted. However, this did not come without criticism. Voltaire , writing in 1760 about Peter

16132-497: The longest paid parental leaves in the OECD . Slovakia is a member of the European Union , the Eurozone , the Schengen Area , the United Nations , NATO , CERN , the OECD, the WTO , the Council of Europe , the Visegrád Group , and the OSCE . Slovakia is also home to eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The world's largest per-capita car producer, Slovakia manufactured a total of 1.1 million cars in 2019, representing 43% of its total industrial output. Slovakia's name means

16280-431: The majority of Europe. The European Union is a supranational political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation and is based on a system of European treaties . The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. A majority of its members have adopted a common currency, the euro , and participate in the European single market and

16428-447: The meantime, the semi-nomadic Magyar tribes, possibly having suffered defeat from the similarly nomadic Pechenegs , left their territories east of the Carpathian Mountains , invaded the Carpathian Basin and started to occupy the territory gradually around 896. Their armies' advance may have been promoted by continuous wars among the countries of the region whose rulers still hired them occasionally to intervene in their struggles. It

16576-464: The millennium. The Roman Republic ended in 27 BCE, when Augustus proclaimed the Roman Empire . The two centuries that followed are known as the pax romana , a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity and political stability in most of Europe. The empire continued to expand under emperors such as Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius , who spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic , Pictish and Scottish tribes. Christianity

16724-433: The north, Nitra Region in the east, Hungarian Győr-Moson-Sopron county in the south and Bratislava Region in the west. In terms of population, the region is smallest of all Slovak regions. However, the population density is 136/km (350/sq mi) (2020-06-30/-07-01), that is more than Slovak average (110 per km). Largest towns are Trnava , Piešťany , Hlohovec , Dunajská Streda and Sereď . The level of urbanization

16872-410: The north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe shares the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Asia and Africa . Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains , the Ural River , the Caspian Sea , the Greater Caucasus , the Black Sea , and the waterway of

17020-441: The northwest ( Asturias ) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees . This territory, under the Arabic name Al-Andalus , became part of the expanding Umayyad Caliphate . The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance. In

17168-420: The northwest. Slovakia's mostly mountainous territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi), hosting a population exceeding 5.4 million. The capital and largest city is Bratislava , while the second largest city is Košice . The Slavs arrived in the territory of the present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries. From the late 6th century, parts of modern Slovakia were incorporated in

17316-453: The older form (compare to Slovenian counterparts). Most foreign translations tend to stem from this newer form ( Slovakia in English, Slowakei in German, Slovaquie in French, etc.). In medieval Latin sources, terms: Slavus , Slavonia , or Slavorum (and more variants, from as early as 1029) have been used. In German sources, names for the Slovak lands were Windenland or Windische Lande (early 15th century), with

17464-431: The originally Persian name Frangistan ("land of the Franks ") is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa . Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries Key: blue : states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia ; green : countries not geographically in Europe, but closely associated with

17612-474: The place of settlement for nearly two-thirds of the Magyar nobility fleeing the Turks and became far more linguistically and culturally Hungarian than it was before. Partly thanks to old Hussite families and Slovaks studying under Martin Luther , the region then experienced a growth in Protestantism . For a short period in the 17th century, most Slovaks were Lutherans . They defied the Catholic Habsburgs and sought protection from neighbouring Transylvania ,

17760-468: The principality formed the core of the Great Moravian Empire from 833. The high point of this Slavonic empire came with the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in 863, during the reign of Duke Rastislav , and the territorial expansion under King Svätopluk I . Great Moravia arose around 830 when Mojmír I unified the Slavic tribes settled north of the Danube and extended the Moravian supremacy over them. When Mojmír I endeavoured to secede from

17908-497: The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. An alternative view is that of Robert Beekes , who has argued in favour of a pre-Indo-European origin for the name, explaining that a derivation from eurus would yield a different toponym than Europa. Beekes has located toponyms related to that of Europa in the territory of ancient Greece, and localities such as that of Europos in ancient Macedonia . There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to

18056-403: The region after the Hussite Wars . Owing to the Ottoman Empire 's expansion into Hungarian territory, Bratislava was designated the new capital of Hungary in 1536, ahead of the fall of the old Hungarian capital of Buda in 1541. It became part of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, marking the beginning of a new era. The territory comprising modern Slovakia, then known as Upper Hungary , became

18204-493: The remaining regions to be partitioned by Hungary or Poland unless independence was declared. Thus, Slovakia seceded from Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939 and allied itself, as demanded by Germany, with Hitler's coalition. Secession had created the first Slovak state in history. A one-party clerical fascist Slovak Republic governed by the far-right Hlinka's Slovak People's Party was led by President Jozef Tiso and Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka . The (First) Slovak Republic

18352-470: The remnants of the local population. From around 500 BCE, the territory of modern-day Slovakia was settled by Celts , who built powerful oppida on the sites of modern-day Bratislava and Devín . Biatecs , silver coins with inscriptions in the Latin alphabet, represent the first known use of writing in Slovakia. At the northern regions, remnants of the local population of Lusatian origin, together with Celtic and later Dacian influence, gave rise to

18500-456: The remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle Pyrenees the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms of Asturias , Leon , and Galicia were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive the Moors out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focused on their own internal power struggles. As

18648-489: The rivalry between Austria and Transylvania , and the frequent insurrections against the Habsburg monarchy inflicted a great deal of devastation, especially in the rural areas. In the Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664) a Turkish army led by the Grand Vizier decimated Slovakia. In 1682, the Principality of Upper Hungary , a short-lived Ottoman vassal state, was established in the territory of modern Slovakia. Prior to this, regions on its southern rim were already encompassed in

18796-630: The same name today. The principal river there – Evros (today's Maritsa ) – flows through the fertile valleys of Thrace , which itself was also called Europe, before the term meant the continent. In classical Greek mythology , Europa ( Ancient Greek : Εὐρώπη , Eurṓpē ) was a Phoenician princess. One view is that her name derives from the Ancient Greek elements εὐρύς ( eurús ) 'wide, broad', and ὤψ ( ōps , gen. ὠπός , ōpós ) 'eye, face, countenance', hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean 'wide-gazing' or 'broad of aspect'. Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in

18944-461: The significant growth in production of copper, especially in central Slovakia (for example in Špania Dolina ) and northwest Slovakia. Copper became a stable source of prosperity for the local population. After the disappearance of the Čakany and Velatice cultures, the Lusatian people expanded building of strong and complex fortifications, with the large permanent buildings and administrative centres. Excavations of Lusatian hill forts document

19092-422: The state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion, and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries. After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: Moldavia and Walachia . Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans. From

19240-416: The substantial development of trade and agriculture at that period. The richness and diversity of tombs increased considerably. The inhabitants of the area manufactured arms, shields, jewellery, dishes, and statues. The arrival of tribes from Thrace disrupted the people of the Kalenderberg culture, who lived in the hamlets located on the plain ( Sereď ) and in the hill forts like Molpír, near Smolenice , in

19388-449: The supremacy of the king of East Francia in 846, King Louis the German deposed him and assisted Mojmír's nephew Rastislav (846–870) in acquiring the throne. The new monarch pursued an independent policy: after stopping a Frankish attack in 855, he also sought to weaken the influence of Frankish priests preaching in his realm. Duke Rastislav asked the Byzantine Emperor Michael III to send teachers who would interpret Christianity in

19536-411: The unique Púchov culture , with advanced crafts and iron-working, many hill-forts and fortified settlements of central type with the coinage of the "Velkobysterecky" type (no inscriptions, with a horse on one side and a head on the other). This culture is often connected with the Celtic tribe mentioned in Roman sources as Cotini . From 2  CE , the expanding Roman Empire established and maintained

19684-433: The vote. In the 2017 elections to the regional parliament the results were as follows: The Trnava Region consists of 7 districts: Dunajská Streda , Galanta , Hlohovec , Piešťany , Senica , Skalica and Trnava . There are 251 municipalities in the region of which 16 are towns. The records for genealogical research are available at the state archive "Statny Archiv in Bratislava, Slovakia" Slovakia This

19832-407: The waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea . Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America , although politically belonging to Denmark. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus

19980-445: The west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artifacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed enclosures , burial mounds and megalithic tombs . The Corded Ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic . During this period giant megalithic monuments, such as

20128-416: The west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire , also known as the Byzantine Empire . During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms

20276-399: The western shore of the Aegean Sea . As a name for a part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BCE by Anaximander and Hecataeus . Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni River on the territory of Georgia ) in the Caucasus, a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. Herodotus mentioned that

20424-414: The wider world. Both world wars began and were fought to a great extent in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence and competed over dominance in Europe and globally. The resulting Cold War divided Europe along the Iron Curtain , with NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in

20572-419: The widespread use of pottery—began around 7000 BCE in Greece and the Balkans , probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and the Near East . It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine ( Linear Pottery culture ), and along the Mediterranean coast ( Cardial culture ). Between 4500 and 3000 BCE, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to

20720-411: The world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts—Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa)—with the Nile and the Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don , rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia. Europe's eastern frontier was defined in the 1st century by geographer Strabo at the River Don. The Book of Jubilees described

20868-444: The year 1381. According to this privilege, Slovaks and Germans were to occupy each half of the seats in the city council of Žilina and the mayor should be elected each year, alternating between those nationalities. This would not be the last such case. In 1465, King Matthias Corvinus founded the Hungarian Kingdom's third university, in Pressburg ( Bratislava ), but it was closed in 1490 after his death. Hussites also settled in

21016-422: Was legalised by Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of imperial persecution . Constantine also permanently moved the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul ) which was renamed Constantinople in his honour in 330 CE. Christianity became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE, and in 391–392 CE the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions. This

21164-411: Was created in 1048 by king Andrew I ) called Duchy of Nitra . Comprising roughly the territory of Principality of Nitra and Bihar principality , they formed what was called a tercia pars regni , third of a kingdom. This polity existed up until 1108/1110, after which it was not restored. After this, up until the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the territory of Slovakia was an integral part of

21312-428: Was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later. The period between the year 1000 and 1250 is known as the High Middle Ages , followed by the Late Middle Ages until c. 1500. During the High Middle Ages the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in the Renaissance of the 12th century . Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible

21460-408: Was integrated into the Principality of Hungary , which then became the Kingdom of Hungary in 1000. In 1241 and 1242, after the Mongol invasion of Europe , much of the territory was destroyed, but was recovered largely thanks to Béla IV . During the 16th and 17th centuries, southern portions of present-day Slovakia were incorporated into provinces of the Ottoman Empire . After World War I and

21608-466: Was paid by Croatia ). After it became clear that the Soviet Red Army was going to push the Nazis out of eastern and central Europe, an anti-Nazi resistance movement launched a fierce armed insurrection, known as the Slovak National Uprising , near the end of summer 1944. A bloody German occupation and a guerilla war followed. Germans and their local collaborators completely destroyed 93 villages and massacred thousands of civilians, often hundreds at

21756-454: Was re-established after the country's liberation at the end of the war. Following the Soviet-backed coup of 1948 , Czechoslovakia became a communist state within the Eastern Bloc , a satellite state of the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain and member of the Warsaw Pact . Attempts to liberalise communism culminated in the Prague Spring , which was suppressed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In 1989,

21904-495: Was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages. The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by half. Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines, and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period. Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death , one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of

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