The SNP city — Slovakia's WWII resistance capital with a medieval square and Low Tatras mountain backdrop
Banská Bystrica is Slovakia's fifth-largest city and the center of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) of 1944 — the largest armed anti-Nazi resistance in Central Europe during WWII. The old town square (SNP Square) is one of Slovakia's finest — a mix of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque burgher houses surrounding the Clock Tower. The city sits in the Hron River valley ringed by the Low Tatras mountains, with Donovaly ski resort 30 minutes north.
Banská Bystrica became one of the most important copper-mining centers in Europe in the 15th–16th centuries — the Fugger banking family of Augsburg held mining concessions here from 1494, and the copper wealth that funded the Habsburgs largely came from this valley. The German name for the city was Neusohl. In August 1944, the city was the headquarters of the Slovak National Council and the coordinating center for the SNP uprising against the Nazi occupation and the Slovak fascist government.