JIHLAVA

German Iglau, city, Jihomoravsk kraj (region), south-central Czech Republic. It lies in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, along the Jihlava River. From about 1240, its prosperity rested on its silver mines. A royal mint operated there from about 1260, and a codified town mining law (Ius Regale Montanorum) served as a model for other central European mining laws. Hussite Utraquists and representatives of the Council of Basel signed a treaty at Jihlava in 1436. In 1523 the town was almost entirely destroyed by fire; its reconstruction, around the great town square, was mostly in Renaissance style. By 1600 the cloth trade had replaced silver as the town's economic basis, and a tobacco factory was introduced in the late 19th century. Today vehicles and precision instruments are manufactured as well. Pop. (1991 prelim.) 52,271.