Partizánske

Partizánske (, meaning "partisan town", formerly: Šimonovany, from 1948: Baťovany, Simony) is a town in Trenčín Region, Slovakia.

Geography
Partizánske is located in the northern part of the Danubian Hills around 55 km from Nitra and 131 km from the capital Bratislava, at the confluence of the Nitra and Nitrica rivers, near the Tribeč mountains. The old village of Veľké Bielice is now part of Partizánske.

History
Partizánske is a relatively young town. Its history starts in 1938–1939, when Jan Antonín Baťa of Zlín and his powerful network of companies built a shoe factory in the cadastral area of Šimonovany municipality. The newly created settlement for workers carried the name of Baťovany and was part of Šimonovany. With the growth of the factory, so grew the settlement. The whole municipality was renamed to Baťovany in 1948 and given town status. As a sign of recognition of local inhabitants fighting in the Slovak National Uprising, the town was renamed Partizánske on 9 February 1949. The factory was renamed by communists to ''Závody 29. augusta'' (29 August works), and it produced 30 million pairs of shoes and employed around 10,000 people. However, after a failed privatisation in the 1990s, only a fraction is left now.

Demographics
According to the 2001 census, the town had 24,907 inhabitants. 97.71% of inhabitants were Slovaks, 0.69% Czechs and 0.35% Roma. The religious makeup was 73.88% Roman Catholics, 18.07% people with no religious affiliation, and 2.95% Lutherans.

Sport
The association football team ŠK Slovan Šimonovany play at the stadium in the east of the town, off the Nemocničná cesta road. The stadium was a former venue for motorcycle speedway from 1958 to 1965 and hosted a final round of the Czechoslovak Individual Speedway Championship in 1961 and 1962.

Another football team FK Tempo Partizánske play at the Rudolfa Jašíka stadium in the south of the town, which is adjacent to and on the right of the ice hockey stadium (Zimný štadión).

Notable natives and residents

 * Miroslav, Jaroslav, Peter and Pavol Dvorský, four brothers who are all successful opera singers
 * Petra Popluhárová (born 1988), handball player

Twin towns – sister cities
Partizánske is twinned with:


 * 🇷🇸 Bajina Bašta, Serbia
 * 🇨🇿 Benešov, Czech Republic
 * 🇵🇱 Krapkowice, Poland
 * 🇨🇿 Náchod, Czech Republic
 * 🇸🇰 Svit, Slovakia
 * 🇨🇿 Valašské Meziříčí, Czech Republic
 * Vukovar, Croatia