Earth : Europe : Central Europe : Slovakia : Eastern Slovakia : Spis
Spiš (German: Zips) is in a historic region in north-east Slovakia near the Polish border. A small portion of it is on the Polish side.
Spisske Podhradie (German: Kirchdrauf) with its nearby:
Spissky Hrad (German: Zipser Burg) - A huge castle
Spisska Kapitula (German: Zipser Kapitel) - a fortified monastery
and the Gothic Church at Zehra (German: Schigra)
- all of which are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Slovak is the national language of Slovakia and it is partially intellegible with Polish, Czech and Ukrainian. The Spis region has notable presence of minorities: Gypsies, Rusyn-Ukrainians, Germans and Gorals. These usually concentrate in their own separate villages where they keep their languages and traditions alife.
Poprad is the biggest city in the Spiš . It has its own airport (the most elevated one in Europe) as well as a railway station. Trains connect Poprad with Bratislava in the west as well as with Kosice (German:Kaschau) in the east.