PRESSBURG, pres'boorg, or PRES BURG (Magyar, Pozsony), Czecho-Slovakia, (1) free city in the west, capital of a county of the same name, on the left bank of the Danube, 35 miles east of Vienna. The site of the town is remarkably fine, being in the form of a semi-circle, bounded on the south by the Danube, from the banks of which it gradually ascends to the west and north toward ramifica tions of the Carpathians; and an extensive plain, covered with gardens, vineyards, meadows and corn-fields, forms its boundary on the east. The houses are built of brick and stone, and of two or three stories. The edifices most de serving of notice are the Landhaus, or Hall of the Diet, in which the chambers of the kingdom used to meet, but now used as a courthouse; the cathedral, a huge Gothic pile with a lofty steeple, begun in 1090, consecrated in 1452 and rebuilt in 1845-67, less remarkable as a church than as the place where the kings of Hun gary were formerly crowned; a number of churches and monasteries, the Jesuit church, a synagogue, the city hall, begun in theatre, archbishop's palace, orphan hospital and barracks. The city possesses a number of in teresting monuments, fountains and bridges. The old castle, formerly residence of the king of Hungary and located on a rock about 275 feet above the Danube, is now a ruin. Of edu cational institutions there are a law school, gymnasiums for boys and girls, a military acad emy, Protestant and Catholic lyceums and a well-equipped library. The industrial estab lishments are devoted especially to the manu facture of wooden ware, musical instruments, gloves, tobacco, silk ribbons, alcohol and wool ens. There are also flour and sawmills and, in the suburbs, a sulphur factory and slate quar ries. The trade, chiefly in corn, is extensive.
Outside the town there used to be an arti ficial mound called the Coronation Hill, to which the newly-crowned kings of Hungary rode in grand procession and brandished the sword of Saint Stephen toward the north, south, east and west, signifying thereby that they undertook to defend the kingdom from danger, come from which quarter it might Pressburg is a place of very great antiquity, being first mentioned in the 9th century. In 1541, when the Turks captured Buda, it became the capital of Hungary, till the Emperor Joseph II restored this dignity in 1784 to Buda. Press burg, however, continued to be the seat of the Diet until 1848. The peace by which Austria ceded Venice to France and the Tyrol to Bavaria was concluded here in 1805. Soon after the establishment of this new republic of the name of the city was changed to Bratislava. Pop. 78,223, of which 32,790 are Germans, 31,700 Hungarians and 11,600 Slovtks; 59,200 are Roman Catholics, 10,500 Protestants and 8,200 Jews. (2) The county of Pressburg, area, about 1,700 square miles, is traversed by part of the Carpathian chain in the north; in the south it is flat and fertile. It is watered by the Danube, March and Waag, and yields corn and grapes. The large forests furnish abundance of timber. Pop. 389,750. Consult Kiraly, J., des Donau-Mauth- and Urfahrt-Rechtes der Freistadt Pressburg) (Pressburg 1890) ; Ortvay, T., der Stadt Pressburg bis 1526) (6 vols., Pressburg 1892-1903); 'Pressburg's Strassen und Plitze' (Pressburg 1905).