The Holy Trinity Column was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its quintessential Baroque style and symbolic value.

[2] Olomouc consists of 26 municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census):[3] The origin of the name is unknown.

Although archaeologists have found traces of a camp of Roman legionnaires, the legend of the presence of Julius Caesar originated in the Renaissance period and nothing confirms it.

The eastern spur of the municipal territory (the villages of Lošov, Radíkov and Svatý Kopeček) extends into the Nízký Jeseník range and includes the highest point of Olomouc, a hill at 444 m (1,457 ft) above sea level.

Chomoutovské Lake, located in the northern tip of the municipal territory, was created by flooding a gravel quarry and has an area of 85 ha (210 acres).

Around 981–990, the Polish Duke Mieszko I took the Moravian Gate and Olomouc as an important place at the intersection of trade routes.

After the Battle of Legnica in Poland, the Mongols carried their raids into Moravia, but were defensively defeated at the fortified town of Olomouc.

It hosted several royal meetings, and Matthias Corvinus was elected here as King of Bohemia (in fact anti-king) by the estates in 1469.

In 1479 two kings of Bohemia (Vladislaus II and Matthias Corvinus) met here and concluded an agreement (Peace of Olomouc of 1479) for splitting the country.

Olomouc was fortified by Maria Theresa during the wars with Frederick the Great, who besieged the city unsuccessfully for seven weeks in 1758.

In 1746 the first learned society in the lands under control of the Austrian Habsburgs, the Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis, was founded in Olomouc to spread Enlightenment ideas.

Largely because of its ecclesiastical links to Austria, Salzburg in particular, the city was influenced by German culture since the Middle Ages.

The town's ecclesiastical constitution, the meetings of the Diet and the locally printed hymnal, were recorded in Czech in the mid-16th and 17th centuries.

The "Germanification" of the town likely resulted from the cosmopolitan nature of the city; as the cultural, administrative and religious centre of the region, it drew officials, musicians and traders from all over Europe.

When the Austrian-born composer and musician Philip J. Rittler accepted a post at the Wenceslas Cathedral in the latter 17th century, he felt it necessary to learn Czech.

In 1919 Olomouc annexed two neighbouring towns and 11 surrounding villages, gaining new space for additional growth and development.

World War II brought a rise in anti-semitism and attacks on the Jews that reflected what was happening in Germany.

The Germans also established and operated a Gestapo prison in the city,[20] and a forced labour camp in the Chválkovice district.

When the retreating German army passed through the city in the final weeks of the war, they shot at its 15th-century astronomical clock, leaving only a few pieces intact (these are held in the local museum).

After the war, the government participated in the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the country, following the Allied leaders' Potsdam Agreement, which redefined the Central European borders, although many of these people's families had lived for two centuries in the region.

[22] The Olomouc agglomeration was defined as a tool for drawing money from the European Structural and Investment Funds.

Passenger trains of all categories operated by České dráhy, RegioJet and LEO Express make stops there.

[27] Most of its faculties were suppressed in the 1850s by the Habsburg régime in retaliation for professor and student support for the 1848 revolution and the Czech National Revival.

The city's ice hockey club is HC Olomouc, playing in the Czech Extraliga (top tier).

On the north west side and adjacent of the Andrův stadion was a facility called the Spartakiad Stadium, which was built after World War II.

[30] Olomouc contains several large squares, the chief of which is adorned with the Holy Trinity Column, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It kept many features of the original church, which had renovations and additions reflecting styles of different ages: Romanesque crypt, Gothic cloister, Baroque chapels.

Other notable destinations are the Olomouc Orthodox Church, consecrated to Saint Gorazd, and the Mausoleum of Yugoslav Soldiers.

This monument commemorates 1,188 Yugoslav soldiers who died during World War I in local hospitals after being wounded on battlefields.

While most European cities were removing old fountains after building water-supply piping, Olomouc decided to keep them as reservoirs in case of fire.