POPRAD

city, western Vchodn Slovensko kraj (region), Slovakia. Located in the Poprad River valley between the Vysok Tatra Mountains, the Nizk Tatry Mountains, and the Levocsk Mountains, it is a centre for the valley's agricultural area, where potatoes, barley, oats, and flax are grown and sheep are reared. Lumbering is an important local industry. The city also has automobile-assembly and food-processing plants and a brewery. More industry is located in Svit, 4 miles (7 km) to the west, where there are chemical, textile, meat-packing, and food-processing plants. Poprad is the regional transportation centre and a starting point for tours into the Vysok Tatra Mountains; it is a rail and road junction and has an airport. The Tatra Museum, with natural history exhibits of the mountain area, is located in Poprad. Spisk Sobota, a small town and now a suburb of Poprad, is noted for its 13th-century Gothic Church of St. Egidius, which is located on a square surrounded with Renaissance and Baroque houses. Pop. (1991 prelim.) 52,878.