Zilina

The name is derived from Slavic/Slovak word žila - a "(river) vein". Žilina means "a place with many watercourses". Alternatively, it is a secondary name derived from Žilinka river or from the name of the local people, Žilín/Žiliňane.

The area around today's Žilina was inhabited in the late Stone Age (about 20,000 BC). In the 5th century, Slavs started to move into the area. However, the first written reference to Žilina was in 1208 as terra de Selinan. From the second half of the 10th century until 1918, it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the middle of the 13th century, terra Sylna was the property of the Cseszneky de Milvány family. The city started to develop around 1300, and, according to records in 1312, it was already a town. In 1321, King Charles I made Žilina a free royal town. On 7 May 1381, King Louis I issued Privilegium pro Slavis, which made the Slav inhabitants equal to the Germans by allocating half of the seats at the city council to Slavs. The town was burned in 1431 by the Hussites. …

The municipality lies at an altitude of 378 metres (1,240 ft) and covers an area of 80.02 km2 (30.90 sq mi) (2025). It is located in the Upper Váh region (Slovak: Horné Považie) at the confluence of three rivers: Váh, flowing from the east into the south-west, Kysuca, flowing from the north and Rajčanka rivers from the south, in the Žilina Basin. The city is surrounded by these mountain ranges: Malá Fatra, Súľovské vrchy, Javorníky and Kysucká vrchovina. Protected areas nearby include the Strážov Mountains Protected Landscape Area, the Kysuce Protected Landscape Area, and the Malá Fatra National Park. There are two hydroelectric dams on the Váh river around Žilina: the Žilina dam in the east and the Hričov dam in the west. Žilina lies in the north temperate zone and has a continental climate with four distinct seasons. …

Žilina hosts several cultural institutions: Mestské divadlo Žilina (Žilina City Theater) Rosenfeld Palace (Žilina city cultural centre Rosenfeld Palace) Považská galéria umenia v Žiline (Považie galerie of contemporary art) Považské múzeum (Považie museum), situated in the Budatín castle, but also running Strečno castle, Palace in Bytča, open-air museum Čičmany, and manor-house in Divinka Bábkové divadlo Žilina (Žilina Puppet Theatre) Múzeum židovskej kultúry (Museum of Jewish culture) Štátny komorný orchester Žilina (Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina) Krajská knižnica v Žiline (Regional Library in Žilina) Stanica Žilina-Záriečie (Cultural Center Stanica) Nová synagóga Žilina (New Synagogue Žilina) Žilina is also home to two multi-3D digital theaters, in Mirage Shopping Centre - Ster Century Cinemas and Cinemax MAX in Max Shopping Centre OC Max Solinky. …

Žilina is the main industrial hub of the upper Váh river basin region, with a fast-growing economy as north-west Slovakia's business center with large retail and construction sectors. By far the biggest and most important employer is the Korean car maker Kia Motors. By 2009, the plant produced 300,000 cars a year and had up to 3,000 employees. Kia Motors' direct investment in the Žilina car plant amounts to over 1.5 billion USD. In 2009, the Žilina car plant produced Kia Cee'd, Kia Sportage, and Hyundai ix35 car models. Kia Motors is further upgrading its capacity to be ready to produce engines for a sister company, Hyundai, located at Nošovice in the Czech Republic with a planned investment of US$200 million. Žilina is also the seat of the biggest Slovak construction and transportation engineering company, Vahostav. …

The historical center of the city, reconstructed in the early 1990s, is protected as a city monument reserve (Slovak: Mestská pamiatková rezervácia). It is centered on the Mariánske námestie and Andrej Hlinka squares. The Mariánske námestie square has 106 arcade passages and 44 burgher houses along the whole square. It is dominated by the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, the old building of the city council, and the baroque statue of the Virgin Mary. Nearby is the Church of the Holy Trinity, a sacral building built around 1400, which is since February 2008 the cathedral of the Diocese of Žilina. The Church of Saint Stephen the King (Slovak: Kostol Sv. Štefana kráľa) is the oldest architectural relic of town Zilina, located just 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) southwest from the center. …