Description & Facts: Bratislava (Slovak) or Pozsony (Hungarian) once the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary is the capital and largest city in Slovakia. It has a population of almost 450,000 and is the administrative, cultural and economic centre of the country. Bratislava (before 1919 known as Pre�?porok in Slovak) Pressburg in German has a very pleasant medieval inner city with tiny, narrow winding streets, a hill-top castle next to the river Danube, and many historic churches and buildings to visit. The old town is centred on two squares, Hlavne namestie (main square) and Hviezdoslavovo namestie (Hviezdoslav square, named after a famous Slovak poet). Of a rather different architectural character are some of the communist-era buildings found in the modern parts of the city; a prime example is Petrzalka housing estate, the biggest Communist-era concrete block housing complex in Central Europe that stretches on endlessly just across the river. The city is so close to Vienna, it could practically be a suburb. Move further east and there are plenty of rural places to explore. Farms, vineyards, agricultural land and tiny villages are situated less than 50 kilometers to the north and east of Bratislava. Today, Bratislava and its surroundings form the second-most prosperous region in Central and Eastern Europe, with a per capita GDP of around 129.3% of the EU-25 average (after Prague). After the fall of the Great Moravian Empire, Slovakia became part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the 10th century until the end of the First World War when the Treaty of Trianon granted Slovakia to Czechoslovakia, a country which Slovaks are widely proud of - for example, most Czechoslovakian presidents, such as Alexander Dub?�ek and Gust??v Hus??k, were ethnically Slovak. Between 1939 and 1944, Slovakia was a German-controlled state, then was conquered by the Soviets to recreate a pro-Soviet Czechoslovakia. Bratislava was the capital (1536 - 1784), the coronation city (1563 - 1830) and the seat of the diet (1536 - 1848) of the Kingdom of Hungary for many years. Since 1960 it has been the capital of the federal state of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia and, since 1993, it has been the capital of independent Slovakia. Although today, Bratislava's population are mostly Slovaks, from the 13th to the early 19th century, the majority ethnic group in the town were the Germans, who remained the largest ethnic group until the First World War (in 1910, 42% were German, 41% Hungarian and 15% Slovak out of a total population of 78,000) . Hungarians formed another important group in the city in the 19th century, but after the First World War, many Germans and Hungarians left for Austria and Hungary respectively and the remaining Germans were expelled at the end of World War II.