Dunajská Streda

Dunajská Streda, Hungarian Dunaszerdahely, town, southwestern Slovakia, on the highway and railway line between Bratislava and Komárno. Dunajská Streda is located at the geographical centre of Great Rye Island (the Slovakian portion of the alluvial plain of the Danube River) and is surrounded by fertile land.

There is evidence of settlement from Roman times. Dunajská Streda was first mentioned in a written document in 1283. In the 15th century it was chartered as a market town. From the early 19th century until World War II it was a centre of Jewish intellectual and economic life. Until 1918 the town belonged to the kingdom of Hungary. After World War I it became part of Czechoslovakia; on November 2, 1938, with the “First Vienna Award,” the town was returned to Hungary, which held it until 1945. Following World War II, although more than nine-tenths of its inhabitants were ethnic Hungarians, Dunajská Streda was again incorporated into Czechoslovakia and remained part of Slovakia when Czechoslovakia splintered in 1993.

The town’s Roman Catholic church was built in the 14th century in Gothic style. The baroque buildings of the Yellow Manor House (1770) were built for bishop Miklós Kondé. Today these buildings house the ethnographical and archaeological collections of the Csallóköz Museum; an exhibition hall was built next to it in 1986.

Dunajská Streda is the industrial and cultural hub of Great Rye Island. Its industries include sugar refining, food processing, and engineering. Pop. (2011) 22,477; (2016 est.) 22,641.