Fulnek () is a town in Nový Jičín District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 5,500 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone. Administrative parts Villages of Děrné, Dolejší Kunčice, Jerlochovice, Jestřabí, Jílovec, Kostelec, Lukavec, Pohořílky, Stachovice and Vlkovice are administrative parts of Fulnek. Geography Fulnek lies north of Nový Jičín and southwest of Ostrava. Fulnek is located in the hilly landscape of the Nízký Jeseník mountain range. The town lies at the confluence of two streams, Husí and Gručovka. History Fulnek was probably founded by the lords of Lichtenburk, who received this land from King Ottokar II of Bohemia. The first written mention of Fulnek is from 1293, when the town already had a fortress, a church and a rectory. The town was probably planned as the centre of a larger estate, which is indicated by the relatively large town square. Fulnek was inhabited by German population, during the Hussite Wars became partly Czech. In the 16th century, Fulnek was a prosperous Renaissance town with German majority. It became an important centre of Moravian Church. A very important representative of this church was John Amos Comenius, who lived and worked here in 1618–1621. In the first half of the 17th century, when Fulnek was owned by the Bruntálský of Vrbno family, there was a lively construction activity in the early Baroque style, which significantly enriched the town and gave it a new character. At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, Fulnek developed rapidly thanks to cloth and weaving production. Until 1918, Fulnek was part of the Austrian monarchy (Austria side after the compromise of 1867), in the Neutitschein – Nový Jičín District, one of the 34 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Moravia. Before World War I, Fulnek became an important base for the radically oriented Nazi Party. After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, the town leadership joined a strong German national movement, which demanded the secession of our border. In the second half of the 1920s, ethnic differences in the town subsided. In 1938, Fulnek was occupied by the Nazi Germany as part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland. Until the spring of 1945, it became the main control centre for Germanization resettlement operations throughout the border, which was occupied by Germany. The great fire at the end of the war