Turzovka () is a town in the

Čadca District Čadca District (''okres Čadca'') is a Districts of Slovakia, district in the Žilina Region of northern central Slovakia, in the Kysuce region. It had been established in 1923 and the current borders exist from 1996. Forest covers 58% of the dist ...

Žilina Region The Žilina Region (; ; ) is one of the eight Regions of Slovakia, Slovak administrative regions and consists of 11 districts (okresy) and 315 municipalities, from which 18 have a town status. The region was established in 1923, however, in its p ...

in north-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 ...

History

The present-day town was established in 1598 by a

palatine A palatine or palatinus (Latin; : ''palatini''; cf. derivative spellings below) is a high-level official attached to imperial or royal courts in Europe since Roman Empire, Roman times.

of the

Thurzó family The House of Thurzó (; ) was a Hungarian noble family from the 15th century to the first half of the 17th century. It was in Kraków that the rise of the Thurzó family began, and the family in turn boosted that city into an important center of b ...

. It gained town status in 1968. This town became well known by the

Marian apparition A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus. While sometimes described as a type of vision, apparitions are generally regarded as external manifestations, whereas visions are more often understood as ...

s reported by Matúš Lašut between 1958 and 1962. The town museum was established on October 1, 2015.

Geography

Turzovka lies at an altitude of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

and covers an area of . It lies in the Kysuca river valley, surrounded by the mountain ranges of Beskydy and

Javorníky The Maple Mountains, Javornik Mountains, or Javorniks (Czech and Slovak: ''Javorníky'') are a mountain range of the Slovak-Moravian Carpathians that forms part of the border between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Its highest point is Veľk� ...

Demographics

According to the 2010

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 7,802 inhabitants. The largest minority group were

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

0.75% and

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: People, characters, figures, names * Roma or Romani people, an ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas. * Roma called Roy, ancient Egyptian High Priest of Amun * Roma (footballer, born 1979), born ''Paul ...

0.27%. The religious make-up was 92.74%

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 0.2%

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 ...

, most of the others giving no affiliation.

Notable people

* Ladislav Polka (1952–2025), politician

Twin towns — sister cities

Turzovka is twinned with: *

Frýdlant nad Ostravicí Frýdlant (, also known as Frýdlant v Čechách; ) is a town in Liberec District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,400 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Cz ...

, Czech Republic * Győrújbarát, Hungary * Kęty, Poland

References

External links

Town website

Marian shrine website
Cities and towns in Slovakia Villages and municipalities in Čadca District {{Žilina-geo-stub