Mesto Spišská Nová Ves / City of Spišská Nová Ves

Spišská Nová Ves is a town and district town in the Košice Region of Slovakia. The city is known as the gateway to the Slovak Paradise National Park. It is the second largest city in Spiš by population, the third largest city in the Košice Region and the sixteenth largest city in Slovakia. Archaeological finds from the territory of the city and its surroundings date back to the 8th century. The first written mention dates back to 1268 as the settlement of Villa Nova. The settlement was founded by German colonists near the old Slavic settlement of Iglov. In the Middle Ages, the right to use deposits of copper, iron and silver helped the development of the city. The town also had a well-known bell-casting workshop. Since 1412, Spišská Nová Ves was one of the towns ceded to Poland. After the end of the Polish ceding, it became the seat of the Province XVI of the Spiš towns returned to Hungary. Spišská Nová Ves increasingly represented a serious competitor to Levoča. With the construction of the Košice–Bohumín railway in 1871, Spišská Nová Ves gradually became the industrial and transport center of the Spiš region.