Szentgotthárd () is the westernmost town of

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. It is situated on the

Rába The Rába (; ; ) is a river in southeastern Austria and western Hungary and a right tributary of the Danube. Geography Its source is in Austria, some kilometres east of Bruck an der Mur below Heubodenhöhe Hill. It flows through the Austrian ...

River near the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n border.

History

The town took its name from, and grew up round, the

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

Szentgotthárd Abbey Szentgotthárd AbbeyLeopold Janauschek, Janauschek number 470 is a former Cistercian monastery and church in Szentgotthárd Hungary that is now a Roman Catholic parish church. In ; ; Prekmurje Slovene: ''Monošterski cistercijánski klošte ...

, founded here in 1183. In 1664, it was the site of the Battle of Saint Gotthard, where an Austrian army led by

Raimondo Montecuccoli Raimondo Montecuccoli (; 21 February 1609 – 16 October 1680) was an Italian-born professional soldier, military theorist, and diplomat, who served the Habsburg monarchy. Experiencing the Thirty Years' War from scratch as a simple footsoldier, ...

defeated the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

so that the Turks had to agree to the Peace of Vasvár, which held until 1683. A second Battle of Saint Gotthard in 1705 was a victory for Rákóczi's anti-Habsburg Hungarian rebels. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Szentgotthárd was captured by

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front on 31 March 1945 in the course of the

Vienna Offensive The Vienna offensive was an offensive launched by the Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in order to capture Vienna, Austria, during World War II. The offensive lasted from 16 March to 15 April 1945. After several days of street-to-street figh ...

. The town is also considered as a centre of Rába Slovenes, the slovenians living in the

region.

Climate

Pápa's climate is classified as

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen climate classification, Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of co ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''Cfb''). The annual average temperature is , the hottest month in July is , and the coldest month is in January. The annual precipitation is , of which July is the wettest with , while January is the driest with only . The extreme temperature throughout the year ranged from on January 24, 2006 to on August 8, 2013.

Notable people

* Ferenc Joachim (1882–1964), painter * Alajos Drávecz (1866–1915), Slovenian ethnologist and writer * Ágoston Pável (1886–1946), Hungarian Slovene writer and poet, graduated here * János Brenner (1931–1957), Roman Catholic priest, died here * Irén Pavlics (1934–2022), Hungarian Slovene author and editor * Tibor Gécsek (born 1964), hammer thrower * Krisztián Pars (born 1982), hammer thrower

Twin towns – sister cities

Szentgotthárd is twinned with: * Delle, France *

Dilovası Dilovası is a municipality and district of Kocaeli Province, Turkey. Its area is 125 km2, and its population is 53,416 (2022). The district Dilovası was created in 2008 from part of the district of Gebze, along with the districts Darıca and ...

, Turkey * Frumoasa, Romania *

Izola Izola (; ) is a town in southwestern Slovenia on the Adriatic coast of the Littoral traditional region. It is the seat of the Municipality of Izola and is one of the three major towns of Slovenian Istria. Name Izola was attested in written s ...

, Slovenia *

Lendava Lendava (; formerly ''Dolnja Lendava'', in older sources also ''Dolenja Lendava''; , formerly ''Alsólendva''; , formerly ''Unter-Limbach'') is a town in Slovenia in the region of Prekmurje. It is the seat of the Municipality of Lendava. It forms ...

, Slovenia *

Tarvisio Tarvisio ( German and ; ) is a (municipality) in the Regional Decentralization Entity of Udine, in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Geography The town is in the Canal Valley (''Val Canale'') between the Carnic Alps and Ka ...

, Italy *

Walldürn Walldürn is a town in the Neckar-Odenwald district, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and t ...

, Germany

References

External links

* in Hungarian, English, German and Slovenian Populated places in Vas County {{Hungary-hist-stub