Jasov is a small town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 and municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in Košice-okolie District

Košice-okolie District

Košice–okolie District is a district in the Košice Region of eastern Slovakia around the city of Košice, which isn't part of the district. Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Abov-Turňa, apart from a small area in the north which formed part of the county of Šariš...

 in the Kosice Region

Košice Region

The Košice Region is one of the eight Slovak administrative regions. It consists of 11 districts .-Geography:It is located in the southern part of eastern Slovakia and covers an area of 6,752 km²...

 of eastern Slovakia.

St.John The Baptist Church

This is the biggest monastery complex in Slovakia and the St John The Baptist church, which forms its centrepiece, is considered one of the country's most important late-Baroque buildings.

Though the present complex dates unquestionably from the eighteenth century, there has been a monastery here since 1170. The first, probably made of wood, was destroyed by the invading Tatars

Tatars

Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

 in 1242. A Romanesque

Romanesque

Romanesque may refer to:*Romanesque art, the art of Western Europe from approximately AD 1000 to the 13th century or later*Romanesque architecture, architecture of Europe which emerged in the late 10th century and lasted to the 13th century...

 stone monastery soon replaced it and was rebuilt in a fortified style in the fifteenth century. The site was then completely levelled again in the 1700s to make way for the present Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 structure.

Geography

The village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 lies at an elevation of 280 m (918.6 ft) and covers an area of 35.419 km² (13.7 sq mi). It has a population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 of about 2,850.

Jasov lies on the edge of the Slovenský Kras

Slovak Karst

The Slovak Karst is one of the mountain ranges of the Slovenské rudohorie Mountains in the Carpathians in southern Slovakia. It consists of a complex of huge karst plains and plateaus. Since 1973 it was a protected landscape area. On 1 March 2002 Slovak Karst National Park was declared...

 , an area of dramatic limestone (or karst) landscapes. The nearby valley between Moldava nad Bodvou and Rožňava

Rožnava

Rožňava is a town in Slovakia, approximately 71 km by road from Košice in the Košice Region, and has a population of 19,120.The town is an economic and tourist center of the Gemer. Rožňava is now a popular tourist attraction with a beautiful historic town centre. The town is an episcopal seat...

, with its wide bottom, high cliffs and a picturesque gorge (at Zádiel

Zádiel

Zádiel is a village and municipality in Košice-okolie District in the Kosice Region of eastern Slovakia.-Geography:The village lies at an elevation of 245 metres and covers an area of 3.516 km². It has a population of about 200 people.-External links:*...

), is typical.

But karst landscapes are noted for what lies beneath their surface as much as what can be seen above, and the Slovenský Kras is no exception. The area is littered with cave complexes, several of them open to the public. One of these is in the hillside a short distance from the monastery at Jasov.

External links

• http://www.jasov.sk/
• http://www.retep.sk/okolie/jasov/jasov.php
• Spectacular Slovakia travelguide - Jasov: Spiritual and temporal symmetry