Stupava (; ) is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

in western

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 ...

. It is situated in the Malacky District,

Bratislava Region The Bratislava Region (, ; (until 1919); ) is one of the Regions of Slovakia, administrative regions of Slovakia. Its capital is Bratislava. The region was first established in 1923 and its present borders exist from 1996. It is the smallest of ...

Etymology

The name is derived from

Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...

''stǫpa'' () - a wooden bowl carved from a tree trunk, but also the name of various crushing and pressing tools.

Geography

The town is located in the

Záhorie , the Romanian village of Dumbrava, called Erdőhát in Hungarian, Pestişu Mic Záhorie () is a region in western Slovakia between the Little Carpathians to the east and the Morava River to the west. Although not an administrative region, it is ...

lowland, under the

Little Carpathians The Little Carpathians (also: ''Lesser Carpathians'', ; ; ) are a low mountain range, about 100 km long, and part of the Carpathian Mountains. The mountains are situated in Western Slovakia, covering the area from Bratislava to Nové Mesto n ...

, around north of

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

at an altitude of 182 metres. It has 15, 095 inhabitants as of 2021 and has a land area of . Apart from the core part of the city, Mást (, ), located just south of the core part of the city, is another part of Stupava. It has been initially a separate village with ethnic Croatian majority, which was formally annexed by Stupava in 1953.

History

Traces of habitation go back to the Bronze Age, and the first known inhabitants were the

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

. The Romans built a military station as a part of the near Limes Romanus on the

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

. The first written mention about the town was in 1269 in a document of the King Béla IV under name ''Ztumpa''. In the second half of the 13th century the now-ruined Pajštún Castle in the Little Carpathians was built. It was developing mainly as an agricultural and trading settlement. The name of the town comes from the pressing mills called ''stupa'' on the ''Stupavský potok'' brook, which were used for extracting oil from flax and hemp.

Landmarks

*Stupava Castle, originally built as a

water castle A water castle, sometimes water-castle, is a castle which incorporates a natural or artificial body of water into its defences.Forde-Johnston (1979), p. 163. It can be entirely surrounded by water-filled moats (moated castle) or natural waterbo ...

, rebuilt in the 17th century to the Renaissance château, now serving as a retirement home *Roman Catholic church in Baroque style from the first half of the 17th century *Baroque-style Calvary chapel from the beginning of the 18th century

Demographics

According to the 2021

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 ...

, the town had 12 595 inhabitants. 96.7% 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 ...

, 1%

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 ...

and 0.5%

Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an Ethnicity, ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common Culture of Hungary, culture, Hungarian language, language and History of Hungary, history. They also have a notable presence in former pa ...

. The religious makeup was 70.4%

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 ...

, 19.5% people with no religious affiliation and 2%

Lutherans Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 15 ...

Twin towns — sister cities

Stupava is twinned with: *

Ivančice Ivančice (; ) is a town in Brno-Country District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,900 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument zone ...

, Czech Republic *

Kuřim Kuřim (; ) is a town in Brno-Country District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. It is the most populated town of Brno-Country District. Geography Kuřim is located about north of Brno. It lies m ...

, Czech Republic *

Łowicz Łowicz is a town in central Poland with 27,436 inhabitants (2021). It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Together with a nearby station of Bednary, Łowicz is a major rail junction of central Poland, where the line from Warsaw splits into ...

, Poland * Nagykovácsi, Hungary * Svoge, Bulgaria

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Cities and towns in Slovakia Villages and municipalities in Malacky District