Familok is a type of house for many families, designed for workers of the

heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

, mainly

coal miner Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

s, built at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in the cities and towns of

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

. "Familok" is a Silesian way of pronouncing the original German name, ''Familien-Block'' (lit. family apartment house). In several towns they are protected by conservationists and renovated due to the historical significance. The protected familoks include the ones in Nikiszowiec of Katowice, Kolonia Zgorzelec in Bytom, Kolonia Emma in Radlin,

Ruda Śląska Ruda Śląska (formerly ) is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. It is a district in the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union, a metropolis with a population of two million. It is in the Silesian Highlands, on the Kłodnica Rive ...

, cities situated in Silesia, and

Bohumín Bohumín (; ; pl, , german: Oderberg) is a town in Karviná District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 20,000 inhabitants. Administrative parts Bohumín is made up of town parts and villages of Nový Bohumín, ...

situated in

Karviná Karviná (; pl, Karwina, , german: Karwin) is a city in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 50,000 inhabitants. It lies on the Olza River in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. Karviná is known as an indust ...

District,

Moravian-Silesian Region The Moravian-Silesian Region ( cs, Moravskoslezský kraj; pl, Kraj morawsko-śląski; sk, Moravsko-sliezsky kraj) is one of the 14 administrative regions of the Czech Republic. Before May 2001, it was called the Ostrava Region ( cs, Ostravský ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, on the border with Silesia.

External links

Old familoks in Katowice-Nikiszowiec in black and white
House types History of Silesia Architecture in Poland Architecture in Germany House styles Upper Silesia {{house-type-stub