history; historical demography; migration; natality; nuptiality; Ostrava; Moravia; Silesia; 19th century

The rapid development of heavy industry in the north-eastern corner of the Czech lands (the Ostrava and Fryštát areas) during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century led to an enormous demand for manual labour. Large numbers of people, especially the young, immigrated to the political district of Fryštát and the northern part of the political district of Místek (which became the independent political district of Moravian Ostrava in 1900) in search of work. This region represented the core of the industrial area, with a large population base. Like the eye of a hurricane, this ?core? sucked people in from the wider surrounding area, draining off excess population from this surrounding area, and so the wider industrial region of Ostrava can be viewed as a zone of widespread migration. People migrated from one part of the conurbation to another, enabling us to compare different demographic trends in individual parts of the region, dominated by immigration or emigration respectively.