Karviná kär´vĭnä [key], Ger. Karwin, city (1991 pop. 68,405), NE Czech Republic, in Moravia, near the Polish border. It is an industrial center of the Ostrava-Karviná coal-mining region. Formerly in Austria, the city became (after 1918) an object of dispute between Poland and Czechoslovakia; after World War I a conference of Allied ambassadors awarded (1920) it to Czechoslovakia despite Polish claims. The city was seized by Poland in Oct., 1938, but was restored to Czechoslovakia in 1945.
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