Árva County (, , , , ) was an administrative county (

comitatus Comitatus may refer to: *Comitatus (warband), a Germanic warband who follow a leader * ''Comitatus'', the office of a Roman or Frankish comes, translated as count. * ''Comitatus'', translated as county, a territory such as governed by medieval cou ...

) of the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

since the 14th century until 1920. Its territory is now in northern

Slovakia 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 the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

and southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Today, the Slovak name is only used as an informal designation of the corresponding territory (see Orava region).

Geography

Between 1804-1854 and 1860-1920, Árva County shared borders with Austrian Galicia and the Hungarian counties of Trencsén, Turóc and

Liptó County Liptó County (, , , , ) was an administrative county ( comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now in northern Slovakia. Geography Liptó county shared borders with the Austrian land Galicia and the Hungarian counties Árva ...

. The county's territory was situated along the Árva (Orava) river between Zázriva (Zázrivá) and the Tatra mountains. Its area was around 1910. Now the territory is divided between Poland and Slovakia. The main Polish town of Orava is Jabłonka.

Capitals

The county seat was at the Orava Castle (Hungarian: Árva vára). After the destruction of the town by the Lithuanian troops in 1683, the seat was moved to Alsókubin (also Kolbin, Kublen, Kubin, Also Helben, Clbin, Culbyn, Cublyn, present-day

Dolný Kubín Dolný Kubín (; also known by #Names, other names) is a town in northern Slovakia in the Žilina Region. It is the historical capital and the largest settlement of the Orava (region), Orava region. Names The name is derived from the archaic Slov ...

History

Emerging from the Zólyom royal land (), the first written mention about Árva County is from 1349.Maslíková 2010, p. 41. However, the territory had been still referenced as a district in 1351-1368 and it finally became a county with its own self-administration in 1370. On 13 September 1850, following the

Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire The revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire took place from March 1848 to November 1849. Much of the revolutionary activity had a nationalism, nationalist character: the Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna, included ethnic Germans, Hungarians, ...

, Árva and Turóc counties were merged to form Árva-Turóc county, becoming part of the Military District of Preßburg; this merger was re-affirmed in 1853 and 1854. In 1860 Hungary's pre-1850 counties, including Árva, were restored. In the aftermath of World War I, the territory of the whole county became part of newly formed

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. After a border dispute (treated in detail under Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts) several villages in the north-east territory were exchanged between Poland and Czechoslovakia. The former county's Czechoslovak part was abolished with effective date 1 January 1923Volko-Kiš 2007, p. 38. and its territory became a part of Váh County.

Demographics

Districts

In the early 20th century, the districts and their capitals were:

Notes

References

External links

* http://www.orava.sk * http://skansen.nowotarski.pl Orawa Ethnographic Park * http://www.oravafoto.com * http://www.namestovo-orava.webnode.sk {{DEFAULTSORT:Arva County States and territories established in 1860 States and territories disestablished in 1854 States and territories disestablished in 1920 Counties in the Kingdom of Hungary