This article is about the former Hungarian county. For other meanings see Orava (disambiguation).
Orava (-Slovak, in Hungarian and Latin: Árva, in German: Arwa, in Polish: Orawa) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in northern Slovakia and southern Poland. Today, Orava is only an informal designation of the corresponding territory.
Orava county shared borders with the Austrian land Galicia and the Hungarian counties Trencsén (Trenčín), Turóc (Turiec) and Liptó (Liptov). The county's territory was situated along the Orava river between Zázrivá and the Tatra mountains. Its area was 2018 km˛ around 1910.
Capitals
The capital of the county was the Orava Castle, then Veličná and since late 17th century Dolný Kubín.
History
Orava county as a Hungarian comitatus arose before the 15th century. In 1918 (confirmed by the Treaty of Trianon1920), Orava county became part of newly formed Czechoslovakia. After a border dispute (treated in detail under Spiš county) several villages in the north-east of Orava county were exchanged between Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Arva, just a little north of the urban brawl we know as Masonville, is the backroads equivalent of a whistlestop on the railway, remarkable for its lone stoplight, and its small dam with the Medway Creek spilling over it.
Already, an exclusive enclave of fancy, three-garage homes is tucked away at the mill property's shoulder, clinging tenuously to the pastoral vistas of Arva.
A first visit to Arva Flour Mill's tiny retail outlet catapults the visitor back in time; it's like a jumbly general store with buggies pulled up in the dusty yard in front of its barn-red, clapboard exterior.
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