Recently, Košice is main city of eastern Slovakia and the country´s
second largest city. It lies in the eastern part of Slovakia, not far
from the borders with Hungary (20 km), Ukraine (80 km) and Poland (90
km). The advantages of this location, near the borders of three states
and lying on important domestic and international transport routes,
translate into the preconditions for good commercial connectivity. This
is significantly enhanced by the existing railway junction and airport
with international status.
Košice has a strong economic
background, and the city creates employment opportunities for the
population of the surrounding region as well as its own. The biggest
local employer is the U. S. Steel Košice steelworks, and of the total
number of registered employees in the city as a whole, the great
majority work in the industrial sphere.
The education and
transport sectors are also strongly represented here. The education
system is significantly represented in the city, with over 45 basic
schools, 10 grammar schools, 4 commercial academies, and 15 specialized
secondary schools covering industrial technologies, agriculture, health
care and the arts. There is also the Technical University with 8
faculties, P. J. Šafárik University with 4 faculties, the University of
Economics and the University of Veterinary Medicine.
Košice – one of the oldest towns in Slovakia – lies at the place
where the River Hornád emerges from its picturesque wooded valley and
flows onto an extensive plain. This is a city with a rich and glorious
past. It starts with the first mention of a community here in a document
from the year 1230, when Košice is referred to as “Villa Cassa”. The
town itself was founded by German colonists from Lower Saxony together
with the original local Slav settlers after the year 1243. It is assumed
that in 1290 Košice acquired town privileges, with the right to hold
markets and fairs, collect taxes and build fortified walls. Further
privileges granted in 1342 and 1347 gave Košice the status of a free
royal town, ranking it as one of the leading centres of Greater Hungary.
Then in 1369 King Ludovicus Magnus granted Košice a coat of arms,
making it absolutely the first town in Europe to use such a symbol on
the basis of a royal armorial warrant.
Following the period of
economic flourishing and relative peace in the 14th and 15th centuries,
Košice in the 16th and 17th centuries experienced troubled times as a
result first of the Turkish invasion threat, then the religious
conflicts of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and later the
series of aristocratic rebellions against the Habsburgs. Despite
repeated armed clashes, during this time the Jesuits were able to make
Košice a seat of learning with its own university and secondary schools.
The
confusion of the incipient Modern Age gave way to peace and progressive
growth in the 18th and 19th centuries. The new Baroque architecture
flourished here, followed by neo-Classicism and Romanticism; the
aristocracy moved into the town, promoting the arts, theatre and social
life. By the end of the 19th century Košice had developed into one of
the most important industrial cities in Greater Hungary. In 1918 Košice
became part of the first Czechoslovak Republic, and although the wartime
Hungarian occupation from 1938 to 1945 brought economic and demographic
decline, at the end of the Second World War Košice for a while became
the capital of the re-established Czechoslovakia. From the 1950’s
onwards the city experienced furious growth, accelerated mainly by the
building of the East Slovakian Steelworks. In the space of one
generation there was a five-fold increase in the city’s population, and a
twenty-fold expansion in its built-up area.
Airport Košice
Web: http://www.airportkosice.sk/en/
EUROBUS – Košice road transport company
Web: http://www.eurobus.sk/en/
Slovak Railways
Web: www.slovakrail.sk/en
Current weather conditions in Kosice are online at
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/Slovakia/Kosice.htm
Slovak Society for Neuroscience
Pavol Jozef Šafárik University
Jessenius Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University
Czech and Slovak Neurochemical Society
Association for support of neuroscience research
9th ISECN
Jan Galik
Institute of Neurobiology BMC SAS
Soltesovej 4-6, 040 01 Kosice
Slovak Republic
Copyright © 2023 - Institute of Neurobiology - Biomedical Research Center - Slovak Academy of Sciences - All rights reserved.