PRES'BURO (Lat. Posonium; Magyar, Pozsony; Slay. Pressburek), a t. in the extreme w. of Hungary, close upon the frontier of lower Austria, is built en the left or northern bank of the Danube, 41 m. by railway e. of Vienna. The neighboring hills are clothed with vineyards. It was long the principal city of Hungary, having been made the capital in 1541, when the Turks seized possession of Buda; and even as late as the last quarter of the 18th c. it was the most beautiful and the most populous town in the kingdom; but when Joseph II., in 1784, restored to Buda its ancient dignity of being the capital of Hungary, and the scene of the coronation of its kings, the sources of the prosperity of Presburg began to be dried up. Its population in 1869 was 46,544, of whom more than two-thirds were Roman Catholics, about 10,000 Lutherans, and 7,000 Jews. Fully one-half of the inhabitants are German, and German is the prevalent lan guage. The most notable buidings in the town are the (Gothic) cathedral, in which the kings of Hungary were crowned; the royal palace, a vast square structure overlooking the town, accidentallyburned In 1811, and not since repaired; the Capuchin, Franciscan, and Ursuline monasteries, with beautiful churches attached to them; the land-haus (hall of the Hungarian diet), etc. The transit-trade by steamboat and railway, especially in
corn, is very great, and gives considerable animation to an otherwise quiet place. Presburg carries on manufactures of silks, woolens, leather, paper, tobacco, glass, and chemical products. Outside the town lies the "king's hill" (KO nigshugel), to which the sovereigns of Hungary were wont to ride after their coronation, and brandish their sword toward the four quarters of the heavens, signifying by that symbolic act that they would defend Hungary from danger—come whence it might. A treaty was con cluded here between Napoleon and the Austrian emperor—known as the "treaty of Presburg"—Dec. 27, 1805, in virtue of which Austria ceded Venice to France, and the Tyrol to Bavaria. Presburg gives name to a "county."