Špania Dolina is a village and municipality in central

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 ...

, near the city of

Banská Bystrica Banská Bystrica (, also known by other #Etymology, alternative names) is a city in central Slovakia, located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Greater Fatra, Veľká Fatra, and t ...

. Although its permanent population does not exceed 200 people, it is a picturesque historic village situated 728 m above sea level and is surrounded by the Staré Hory and

Veľká Fatra Veľká Fatra (; also Great Fatra or Greater Fatra; ) is a mountain range in the Western Carpathians in Slovakia. The Veľká Fatra lie to the southeast of the better known Malá Fatra, Malá (Lesser) Fatra mountains and are less developed, as we ...

mountains. It has become a popular tourist recreation centre.

Name

The ancient

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

name of the village is ''Valis Dominorum'' (meaning "Lord’s Valley"). The first part of the Slovak name ("Špania") is derived from another Latin word for "lord": ''spanatus''. The second part ("Dolina") means "valley" in Slovak. The old German name of the village was ''Herrengrundt'' and it has been used for centuries by

Carpathian Germans Carpathian Germans (, or ''felvidéki németek'', , , ) are a group of Germans, ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe. The term was coined by the historian :de:Raimund Friedrich Kaindl, Raimund Friederich Kaindl (1866–1930), originally ...

living in the area. The Hungarian name of the village is ''Úrvölgy''.

History

Prehistoric mining tools excavated in the territory of Špania Dolina have been dated from as early as 2000-1700 BC.

Copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

from Špania Dolina has also been identified in bronze artifacts from the Balkans and the Middle East. It indicates that the local mines were part of an extensive network of trade routes during the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. However, the first written reference to the village itself only appeared in 1254. Abundant deposits of copper and silver were exploited first by miners from Banská Bystrica and after 1494 by one of the first

multinational corporation A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...

s, founded by the affluent

Fugger The House of Fugger () is a German family that was historically a prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists. ...

and Thurzo families. The rich region attracted many foreign visitors. The House of Fugger funded a laboratory of the famous

alchemist Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

Paracelsus Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. H ...

there. In 1696, Edward Browne gave description of the mine of Herrengrund (Browne used the German name of the settlement), belonged that time to the Hungarian Kingdom, in his book: ''Brief account of some travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Friuli''. He mentions the very rich ore, „in an hundred ponds of Ore they ordinarily find twenty ponds of Copper”. Browne sent some ore to the prominent English naturalist, John Woodward, these are now in his collection in Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. The prominent French thinker

Montesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principal so ...

visited and described the copper mines in Špania Dolina upon the encouragement of

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

. The ancient tradition of making

bobbin lace Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of yarn, thread, which are wound on #Bobbins, bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pi ...

led to the establishment of a bobbin lace craft school in 1883. The copper mines were closed down in 1888 and the economy of the village is now based primarily on tourism.

Landmarks

A covered stairway leads to a fortified church, built in the Gothic and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

styles. Wooden miners' houses, now reconstructed, were originally built in the 17th and 18th centuries. The so-called "Knocker" from the 16th century served as a special bell tower for calling the miners to work in the morning. Ancient shafts and other technical monuments are scattered in the nearby forests. Špania Dolina is also a hub of

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

mountain biking Mountain biking (MTB) is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability ...

, and

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing whereby skiers traverse snow-covered terrain without use of ski lifts or other assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreational activity; however, some still use it as a m ...

trails.

Demographics

Špania Dolina has only 192 residents (as of December 31, 2013). According to the 2001

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, 95.3% of inhabitants were

Slovaks The Slovaks ( (historical Sloveni ), singular: ''Slovák'' (historical: ''Sloven'' ), feminine: ''Slovenka'' , plural: ''Slovenky'') are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Slovakia who share a common ancestry, culture, history ...

and 3%

Czechs The Czechs (, ; singular Czech, masculine: ''Čech'' , singular feminine: ''Češka'' ), or the Czech people (), are a West Slavs, West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common Bohemia ...

. The religious makeup was 82.8%

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

and 10.7% people with no religious affiliation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spania Dolina Villages and municipalities in Banská Bystrica District Mining communities in the Slovak Republic