Nemecké obyvateľstvo Turčianskej stolice optikou Belových Vedomostí

The territory of the former German-speaking islands in central Slovakia, which is generally referred to as the Hauerland, was in the past one of the three largest residential areas of the German population in Slovakia. Together with other groups of Germans, Hauerland formed a cultural and linguistic group of Slovak Germans, which, despite its regional specificity, maintained a common consciousness. The paper focuses on the description of the German population living in Turiec County, which belonged to the Hauerland residential area. I draw knowledge about the researched topic from Matthias Bel’s work Notitia Hungariae Novae historico-geographica (“Historical- geographic knowledge about New Hungary”). The primary goal of my study is a comprehensive analysis of the information found in Bel’s work, which relates to the German population in Turiec County.