Morava (river) in the context of "Pressburg"

Bratislava (German: Pressburg; Hungarian: Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of the Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all cities on the river Danube. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, some sources estimate the daily number of people moving around the city based on mobile phone SIM cards is more than 570,000. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia at the foot of the Little Carpathians, occupying both banks of the Danube and the left bank of the River Morava. The city is situated on the border of three countries—Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary—and is the only national capital to have land borders with two other sovereign states. Its geographic position places it exceptionally close to the Austrian capital Vienna, making them the closest pair of capital cities in Europe at just 50 kilometres (31 mi) apart.

The city's history has been influenced by people of many nations and religions, including Austrians, Bulgarians, Croats, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Jews and Slovaks. It was the coronation site and legislative center and capital of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536 to 1783; eleven Hungarian kings and eight queens were crowned in St Martin's Cathedral. Most Hungarian parliament assemblies were held here from the 17th century until the Hungarian Reform Era, and the city has been home to many Hungarian, German, and Slovak historical figures.

Great Moravia (Latin: Regnum Marahensium; Greek: Μεγάλη Μοραβία, Meghálī Moravía; Czech: Velká Morava [ˈvɛlkaː ˈmorava]; Slovak: Veľká Morava [ˈvɛʎkaː ˈmɔrava]; Polish: Wielkie Morawy, German: Großmähren), or simply Moravia, was the first major state that was predominantly West Slavic to emerge in the area of Central Europe, possibly including territories which are today part of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine and Slovenia. The formations preceding it in these territories were Samo's tribal union (631–658) and the Pannonian Avar state (567–822).

Centered on the Morava River – which gave the realm its name – the core encompassed today’s Moravia in the eastern Czech Republic and adjacent western Slovakia. The kingdom saw the rise of the first-ever Slavic literary culture in the Old Church Slavonic language as well as the expansion of Christianity, first via missionaries from East Francia, and later after the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in 863 and the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet dedicated to a Slavic language. Glagolitic was subsequently replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet created in the First Bulgarian Empire.

Olomouc (Czech pronunciation: [ˈolomouts] ; German: Olmütz) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 103,000 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city in the country. It is the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region.

Located on the Morava River, the city is the ecclesiastical metropolis and was a historical co-capital city of Moravia, before having been occupied by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War. The historic city centre is well preserved and is protected as urban monument reservation. The Holy Trinity Column was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its quintessential Baroque style and symbolic value.

The Sudetes (/suːˈdiːtiːz/ soo-DEE-teez), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain ranges and are the highest part of the Bohemian Massif. They stretch from the Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest across to the region of Lower Silesia in Poland and to the city of Ostrava in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains. Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps.

In the east of the Sudetes, the Moravian Gate and Ostrava Basin separates from the Carpathian Mountains. The Sudetes' highest mountain is Sněžka (Polish: Śnieżka) at 1,603 m (5,259 ft), which is also the highest mountain of the Czech Republic, Bohemia, Silesia, and Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It lies in the Giant Mountains on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. Praděd (1,491 m/4,893 ft) in the Hrubý Jeseník mountains is the highest mountain of Moravia. Lusatia's highest point (1,072 m/3,517 ft) lies on Smrk mountain in the Jizera Mountains, and the Sudetes' highest mountain in Germany, which is also the country's highest mountain east of the river Elbe, is Lausche (793 m/2,600 ft) in the Lusatian Mountains. The most notable rivers rising in the Sudetes are the Elbe, Oder, Spree, Morava, Bóbr, Lusatian Neisse, Eastern Neisse, Jizera and Kwisa. The highest parts of the Sudetes are protected by national parks; Karkonosze and Stołowe (Table) in Poland and Krkonoše in the Czech Republic.

The Quadi were a Germanic people during the Roman era, who were prominent in Greek and Roman records from about 20 AD to about 400 AD. By about 20 AD they had a kingdom centred in the area of present-day western Slovakia, north of the Roman border on the Danube river. After probably first settling near the Morava river the Quadi expanded their control eastwards over time until they also stretched into present day Hungary. This was part of the bigger region which had been partly vacated a generation earlier by the Celtic Boii, and their opponents the Dacians. The Quadi were the easternmost of a series of four related Suebian kingdoms that established themselves near the river frontier after 9 BC, during a period of major Roman invasions into both western Germania to the northwest of it, and Pannonia to the south of it. The other three were the Hermunduri, Naristi (also known as Varisti), and the Quadi's powerful western neighbours the Marcomanni. Despite frequent difficulties with the Romans, the Quadi survived to become an important cultural bridge between the peoples of Germania to the north, the Roman Empire to the south, and the Sarmatian peoples, most notably the Iazyges, who settled in the same period on the great plain between the Danube and the Tisza rivers.

The Marcomannic wars, during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperors, involved several rounds of particularly destructive conflict against the Quadi and their neighbours, who at one point even invaded Italy itself. By 180 AD when the emperor died on campaign in this region, there were new peace agreements between Rome and the Quadi, but these did not resolve the longer term problems which the region continued to face. Populations from more distant regions periodically disrupted the area, increasing tensions with Rome. Small scale raiding from the neighbouring Sarmatian plain into Roman Pannonia continued, and this played a role in triggering more conflicts between the Quadi and Romans in the third and fourth centuries. However, while the original Marcomanni settlements in the northern Bohemian forest subsequently shrank and became less important, the Quadi thrived near the Danube, and became more culturally integrated with both their Roman and Sarmatian neighbours.

The Battle on the Marchfeld (i.e. Morava Field; German: Schlacht auf dem Marchfeld / Schlacht bei Dürnkrut und Jedenspeigen; Czech: Bitva na Moravském poli; Hungarian: Második morvamezei csata / dürnkruti csata; Polish: Bitwa pod Suchymi Krutami) at Dürnkrut and Jedenspeigen took place on 26 August 1278 and was a decisive event for the history of Central Europe for the following centuries. The opponents were a Bohemian (Czech) army led by the Přemyslid king Ottokar II of Bohemia and the German army under the German king Rudolph I of Habsburg in alliance with King Ladislaus IV of Hungary. With 15,300 mounted troops, it was one of the largest cavalry battles in Central Europe during the Middle Ages. The Hungarian cavalry played a significant role in the outcome of the battle.

King Ottokar II of Bohemia expanded his territories considerably from 1250 to 1273, but suffered a devastating defeat in November 1276, when the newly elected German king Rudolph I of Habsburg imposed the Imperial ban on Ottokar, declaring him an outlaw and took over Ottokar's holdings in Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria. Ottokar was reduced to his possessions in Bohemia and Moravia, but was determined to regain his dominions, power, and influence. In 1278 he invaded Austria, where parts of the local population, especially in Vienna, resented Habsburg rule. Rudolf allied himself with King Ladislaus IV of Hungary and mustered forces for a decisive confrontation.