Svätý Jur

History

Archaeological excavations date the original settlement to the Hallstatt period and the Quadi period. In the 9th century, a Great Moravian castle was built here. Svätý Jur was first mentioned in a written source in 1209 and received a town charter in 1299. It became a royal free town in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1647. Defensive city walls were constructed between 1603 and 1664, but Svätý Jur was devastated by the Ottoman Turks in their invasion of 1663. The Ottoman troops also destroyed the White Castle (), which had been an important administrative center of the region until then. In the 18th century, the Hungarian government recruited German farmers to repopulate the area. To encourage migration, it allowed the Germans to keep their language and religion in order to develop farmland for cultivation and produce. Through the 19th century and into the 20th century, the population of this area was largely ethnic German, although by that time they spoke an archaic form of German. They were known as Danube Swabians. In part because Nazi Germany used the eastern ethnic German communities as an excuse for its wars of expansion in eastern Europe, after World War II, ethnic Germans were forcefully expelled to Germany and other Western countries. In 1840, the first (horse) railway in the Kingdom of Hungary was built from Bratislava to Svätý Jur.

Geography

Svätý Jur is situated in the Pezinok District of the Bratislava Region in southwestern Slovakia. The surrounding areas include large vineyards in the nearby Little Carpathians and the unique Šúr swamps, a protected area.

Most-observed species

• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  4,901
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  4,197
• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,266
• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,938
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,909
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,769
• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,601
• Great Spotted Woodpecker

  Dendrocopos major (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,214

Most recent

• M 3.9 — 2026-02-21
  11 km ESE of Šamorín, Slovakia
• M 3.9 — 2021-04-19
  3 km SW of Wiener Neustadt, Austria
• M 4 — 2021-03-30
  3 km NW of Lanzenkirchen, Austria
• M 4.2 — 2016-04-25
  3 km NNE of Heiligenkreuz, Austria
• M 3.6 — 2013-10-02
  2 km ENE of Unterwaltersdorf, Austria
• M 4.2 — 2013-09-20
  1 km SSW of Leithaprodersdorf, Austria