BRNO

German Brünn

City (pop., 2001 prelim.: 379,185), southeastern Czech Republic.

Located southeast of Prague , it lies in an area that shows evidence of prehistoric inhabitance and traces of Celtic and Slavic settlements in the 5th–6th centuries AD. German colonization in the 13th century stimulated its growth; it received city status in 1243. In various wars in the 15th–19th centuries, it was besieged by the Swedes, Prussians, and French. Before World War I it was the capital of the Austrian crown land of Moravia . The inhabitants, predominantly German before World War II, are now mainly Czech. Gregor Mendel worked on his theory of heredity (1865) in the monastery at Brno.