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Moravia

Moravia is a topographic borderland situated between Bohemia and Slovakia. Its southwest-to-northeast ridge lines and lower elevations made it useful as a route for communications and commerce from Vienna to the north and northeast during the period of Austrian domination of Central Europe. The central and southern Moravian lowlands are part of the Danube Basin and are similar to the lowlands they adjoin in southern Slovakia. The upland areas are smaller and more broken than those of Bohemia and Slovakia. The northwest hills are soft sandstone and are cut by deep gorges. South of them, but north of Brno, is a karst limestone area with underground streams and caves. These and the other uplands west of the Morava River are associated with the Hercynian Massif. The land to the east of the Morava is called Carpathian Moravia.

The Moravian-Silesian region is situated in the north-east part of the Czech republic. From the view of the Czech Republic and its regionalstructure it borders with the olomouc and zlín regions. From the European view neighbours are Silesian and opole voivodeships in polandand the Žilina region in Slovakia.The region is split into 22 administration units of municipalities with extended powers (competences) which cover 299 municipalities, 8 of which are cities. Its area of 5 445 km2 represents 7,0 % of the total Czech republic territory and is thus the 6th largest one.

The Moravian-Silesian region has peculiar identity and clear demographic and cultural framework. There are large agricultural areas with low population density and, on the other hand, there are densely populated industrial areas in the Ostrava and Karviná districts. The Moravian-Silesian history has been influenced by many famous personalities of science, technology, culture and sports - those who were born there or came later on, in the course of their life.

With its population of 1 250 769) the Moravian-Silesian region is the most densely populated region, though with its 299 municipalities it ranks amongthose with the lowest number of municipalities. The population density thus reaches 227,2 inhabitants per km2, while the Cr populationdensity makes 126,6 inhabitants per km2. The average area of the territory (cadastre) of a municipality is 18, km2, is the second largest in theCr and is thus nearly 50 % larger than the average municipality territory in the Czech Republic (12,6 km2). only about 2% of population live in municipali-ties with less than 499 citizens, over 1 % of the regional population live in municipalities with 5 000 to 19 999 citizens.

Most of the regional citizens (nearly 62%), which is an exception within the Czech Republic, live in cities with over 20 000 citizens. The regional metropolis of ostrava withover 10 000 citizens thus represents one fourth of the regional population. There are other cities with more than 50 000 citizens - Havírov,Karviná, opava and Frýdek-Místek.

Since the 19th century the Moravian-Silesian region has belonged and still belongs to the most important industrial regions in Central Europe. The Moravian-Silesian region and its economy still belongs to the most important ones in the Czech republic, in spite of the decline of coalmining, extensive restructuring of industrial enterprises and resulting unfavourable economic development in recent years.

The region is a national center of metallurgy and represents 100 % of pig iron (hot metal) output, 92 % of steel and 98 % of coke. It covers almost 100% of thehard (black) coal output in the Czech Republic, even if the amount of extracted material has been decreasing. apart from such traditional industrial branchesthere are others which are growing, e.g. electricity generation and distribution, manufacturing of transport vehicles and food processing andtobacco industry. on the other hand, the reduction of output and many important environmental projects implemented in individual enter-prises bring about very favorable impact on the improvement of regional environment. Many restructured enterprises have been acquisited by foreign investors. There are twelve industrial zones in the region, 65% of their area is already full, on average. The most successful onesare industrial zones in Karviná - nové pole and Koprivnice - many investors have settled there and the zones are, in fact, prospering industrialparks. There are sites which are fully occupied now, e.g. Krnovcervený dvur, ostrava-Hrabová and Trinec Baliny.

The Moravian-Silesian regional Council is the executive regional body acting within the regional autonomy, which prepares proposals and background documents for the regional assembly and its sessions. Council powers include to manage and audit regional finance within the budget approved, to appoint and dismiss heads of departments, to establish the Council Committees, to issue regional decrees (by-laws), to make decisions on the property ownership issues. The Moravian-Silesian Regional Council consists of 11 members and its meetings are not public, by law. On its constituent session held on December 1, 2004, the regional assembly elected the president of the region and other members of the regional Council.