Sopron

Sopron (in German: Ödenburg ) is a Hungarian city of approximately 55.000 inhabitants located at approximately 60 km of Vienna and 220 km of Budapest, in the south-west of the Lac of Neusiedl. It is inserted like a spur in Austrian territory and thus constitutes a corridor to be crossed for the Austrian railway network.

The city is in the department of Győr-Moson-Sopron. Including/understanding an important German-speaking minority it is officially bilingual. It is one of the oldest cities of the country and it constitutes a bond between the Hungary and its neighbor of the West. It is what is symbolized in its armorial bearings.

History

Until the 15th century

The occupation of the place is very old. At the time when the sector which belongs today to Western Hungary was a province of the Roman Empire, there was a named city Scarbantia. Its forum was where now the principal place of Sopron is.

During the great Scarbantia invasions was given up and when the Hungarians settled there there were nothing any more but ruins. 9th century at the 11th century century the Hungarians restored the old Roman walls and built a fortress. The city took its current name at that time, of a lord of the manor named Suprun. In 1153 it is mentioned like an important city.

In 1273 Otakar II, king of Bohemia, occupied the fortress but, although it had taken with him as hostages the children of noble of Sopron, the city opened its doors with the armies of Ladislas IV on their arrival. The king rewarded it by raising it with the row for royal free city.

Sopron, civitas fidelissima

After the First World War, one had envisaged to make of it the capital of the Burgenland of which it was the most important city by far. The Hungarian government however succeeds in obtaining a plebiscite which by 65,2% of the voices decided for the maintenance in Hungary in December 1921.

This result was due to handling in favor of Hungary and also to the establishment of the mode Horthy which benefitted from the fear of the middle-class vis-a-vis the red peril whereas the social democrat voters decided mainly for Austria.

It is in Sopron that on August 19th, 1989 the picnic paneuropéen during took place which approximately 600 citizens of GDR fled in Austria by the border. Each year, at the same place, of the festivals commemorate this historical event.

Located in Western Hungary, Sopron currently knows a great expansion owing to the fact that economically it is for a long time related to the Austria. In the last decade of the 20th century it became an attractive destination for the inhabitants of Viennoise conurbation who wish to make purchases, which was worth to him by joke the nickname of Shop-ron which corresponds to the Hungarian pronunciation, if one does not take too account of the vowels. Today still, the dentists are very stocked because of their tariffs, lower by a third to those their Austrian colleagues.

If the situation in end of the world of the city at the time of the Iron curtain were a major disadvantage, all radically changed. Its favorable situation between Vienna and Budapest calls it with a great development which will make an economic center of gravity of it.

Curiosities

The famous type-setter Franz Liszt gave its first concert to Sopron. The Palate of the Congresses and the Culture of the city bears its name.

The symbol of the city is the Tower of the Lantern. On its southern part, the door of Fidelity was set up in memory of the referendum of 1921. The Town hall was built in 1896 at the time of the Millenium of Hungary, the Stornó house which faces him shelters an important collection. It is in the Geiss church that at the 17th century crownings and the sessions of the Parliament took place. The column of the Trinity was built in style baroque; another monument is the church of the Ursulines built in the neo-gothic style. A circular ditch replaces the old ditch of the castle, the interior line of houses follows the layout of the fortifications.

See too

External bonds

Official site of Sopron
Sopron.com Information, Sopron' S high-class information portal

Simple: Sopron

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