Banská Štiavnica

The Celts, probably the Cotini tribe, founded the first mining settlement here in the 3rd century BC. By 1156 the area was already called terra banensium, "the land of miners". German miners arrived from the 13th century. The town gained the status of a royal town in 1238, among the first in the Kingdom of Hungary, and through the High and Late Middle Ages it was the kingdom's main producer of silver and gold.

The Ottoman wars brought fortifications and two castles in the 16th century, and the town became a centre of the Reformation as a member of the Protestant League of Seven Mining Towns. It was also a centre of mining innovation: in 1627 gunpowder was used in one of its mines for one of the first times in the world, and in the 18th century the scientists Samuel Mikovíny, Jozef Karol Hell and Maximilian Hell built the tajchy, reservoirs and channels that drained and powered the mines. Mikovíny founded a mining school in 1735, which became the Academy of Mining in 1763 with Maria Theresa's support, and later added forestry. In 1782 Banská Štiavnica was the third-largest town in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Mining declined from the second half of the 19th century, and in 1919, after the creation of Czechoslovakia, the academy moved to Sopron in Hungary. Soviet troops took the town on 7 March 1945. On 11 December 1993 UNESCO listed the town and the technical monuments around it as a World Heritage Site, and tourism and recreation are now its main business.

Mining shaped the town's culture as well as its streets. The Klopačka, a tower of 1681, once sounded the start of the miners' shifts and announced festivals, meetings, funerals and fires, and the Salamander procession, first a ceremonial parade of the academy's students, has been revived every September since 1949 as the centrepiece of the Salamander Days. It portrays the life of the mining town and the legend of how its gold and silver were found, and is listed as part of Slovakia's intangible cultural heritage.

The academy's student traditions, known as the School traditions of Selmec after the town's Hungarian name, live on at its successor schools in Slovakia and Hungary. Religion has left its mark too: St Catherine's became the Slovak Church in 1658, the Church of the Assumption served German speakers, and the Lutheran church of 1794–96, which has no tower, follows the rules Emperor Joseph II set for Protestant churches. Today Roman Catholics are the largest group, alongside a Lutheran minority and many people of no religion.

The summer calendar fills the old town and the castles with festivals and concerts, and in September the manor at Svätý Anton hosts St Hubert's Days, with hunting traditions and a mass.

About 9,200 people live in Banská Štiavnica. In 1782 the town and its suburbs had tens of thousands of inhabitants; the decline of mining from the late 19th century left a small town in a large historic shell, and today the old centre holds museums, guesthouses, cafés and shops alongside homes.

Tourism and recreation are now the town's main business. Visitors come for the old town, the mining museums and the lakes. Everyday shopping happens at supermarkets on Drevená street, and much local life moves out to the lakes in summer, when Počúvadlo and the other tajchy fill with swimmers and campers.

The landscape around the town is part of the Štiavnica Mountains Protected Landscape Area, with forests, meadows, orchards and old mining works — waste heaps, shafts and reservoirs — scattered across the hills. Sitno, at 1,009 metres the highest point of the range, was a Bronze Age hill fort.

Banská Štiavnica eats as central Slovakia does, from sheep's-cheese country. Bryndzové halušky, small potato dumplings with bryndza sheep's cheese, are on the menus of the town's restaurants, along with bryndzové pirohy, dumplings filled with the cheese, and demikát, a soup based on bryndza. Kapustnica, sauerkraut soup often cooked with mushrooms, meat and sausage and sometimes served in a bread bowl, is another staple.

Most restaurants and cafés are on and around Holy Trinity Square, with Slovak cooking alongside pizzerias. Chicken paprikash is typically served with halušky, and Hungarian-style goulash with slices of a large steamed bread dumpling, while lokše, pancakes of potato dough baked directly on the stove, are another Slovak staple. In summer the lakes have their own simple food scene, with snack bars and fast food by the water at Počúvadlo. For something sweet, zlaté halušky, golden dumplings of curd cheese and semolina topped with sweet breadcrumbs, are a traditional Slovak dessert.