Spišský Hrušov is a 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...

 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 the Spišská Nová Ves District

Spišská Nová Ves District

Spišská Nová Ves District is a district in the Košice Region of eastern Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Spiš, apart from a small area around the...

 in the Košice 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 central-eastern Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

.

History

The village was founded before the 12th century in the former Hungarian Szepes County. The first historical records

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 of its existence are from 1253. The village name is derived from the Slovak

Slovak language

Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...

 word for pear

Pear

The pear is any of several tree species of genus Pyrus and also the name of the pomaceous fruit of these trees. Several species of pear are valued by humans for their edible fruit, but the fruit of other species is small, hard, and astringent....

 (hruška) and its former Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

 names incorporated the equivalent Hungarian word for pear of "körte". Local folklore refers to a large pear tree located on a nearby hill that was supposed to have had mysterious powers. The tree is now gone but the story lives on. The coat of arms of the village is a tree on a hill with four pears on its branches.

Below is a chronology of the former Hungarian, German, and Slovak names of present day Spišský Hrušov:

1253 - Kurtues, Kurtueles

1255 - Kurtuelus

1294 - Horusk, Hurusk

1360-1364 - Hruschfálva, Hruskfálva, Hruskafálva

1368 - Grussov

1386 - Graucza

1495 - Grawss

1500 - Hrussow

1773 - Körtvélyes, Körtvélesz, Bierndorff, Grossow

1786 - Körtwélyesch, Birndorf, Hrussow

1808 - Körtvélyes, Birndorf, Grausch, Hrussow

1863-1902 - Körtvélyes

1907-1918 - Szepeskörtvélyes

1920 - Hrušov

1927 - Spišský Hrušov

Next to the town hall is the Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 style Roman Catholic church of St. Catherine of Alexandria

Catherine of Alexandria

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius...

 (Kostol svätá Kataríny Alexandrijskej). It was built in the late 13th century, rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, renovated in 1900 and again in 1951. The Chapel of St. Sofia (Kaplnka svätá Žofie) adjoins the northeast side of the church.

The only industry in Spišský Hrušov is BIO-plus, s.r.o, a company that manufactures motor fuel from organic plant material. It is located at the northeast end of a road that follows a tributary of the Lodina River that runs through the village.

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 altitude

Altitude

Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used . As a general definition, altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The reference datum also often varies according to the context...

 of 424 meters (1,400 feet) and covers an area

Area

Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...

 of 13.07 km² (5 miles²). 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 1270 people. Spišský Hrušov is 12 km (7.5 mi) east of Spišská Nová Ves on highway 536. The surrounding land is gently rolling fields. A tributary of the Lodina River runs through the village. The Lodina River joins the Hornád River at the village of Vítkovce

Vítkovce

Vítkovce is a village and municipality in the Spišská Nová Ves District in the Košice Region of central-eastern Slovakia.-Geography:The village lies at an altitude of 406 metres and covers an area of 5.217 km².It has a population of about 520 people....

about 2 km (1.2 mi) southeast of Spišský Hrušov.

External links

• http://www.statistics.sk/mosmis/eng/run.html