Nový Jičín

Nový Jičín is a town in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic, called Neutitschein in German, with about 23,000 inhabitants. It lies about 30 kilometres southwest of Ostrava in the Moravian-Silesian Foothills, on the Jičínka River at its confluence with the streams Zrzávka, Grasmanka and Rakovec. The town was probably founded around 1280 as the economic centre of the Starý Jičín estate, was first mentioned in writing in 1313, and passed from the Lords of Kravaře to the Zierotin family. Frederick V made it a royal town in 1620, and it was badly damaged in the Thirty Years' War and by fires in 1768 and 1773. It is nicknamed the town of hats because hats have been made here since 1630, and its mechanical hat factory, begun in 1865, is described as the oldest in the world. The well-preserved Renaissance and Baroque centre, protected as an urban monument reservation, has an arcaded square, the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Žerotínský Castle, whose oldest parts date from the 1380s.