RATIBOR (Polish Raciborz), a town of Prussian Silesia in the department of Oppeln, is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Oder at the point where the river becomes navigable, about 12 miles from the Austrian frontier. The most prominent buildings are the handsome courthouse by Schinkel and the Modern Gothic church; on the right bank of the Oder is the old château of the dukes of Ratibor. The town is the seat of a diversified industry, the chief products of which are machinery and railway gear, iron wares, tobacco and cigars, paper, sugar, furniture, and glass. Trade is carried on in these articles and in agricultural produce, and hemp and vegetables are largely grown in the environs. The population in 1880 was 18,373, or, including the immediately adjacent villages, 27,100, five-sixths of whom are Roman Catholics. In the town itself, where there are only about 2500 Poles, German is chiefly spoken, but Polish and Czechish dialects are predominant in the neighbourhood.

Ratibor, which received municipal privileges at the close of the , 13th century, was formerly the capital of an independent duchy,

380 square miles in extent, which existed as such from 1288 to 1532 and afterwards passed successively into the hands of Austria and Prussia (1742). In 1815 a small mediate principality was formed out of the old lordship of Ratibor and certain ecclesiastical domains, and was conferred upon the landgrave Amadeus of Hessen-Rothenburg as compensation for Rhenish territory absorbed by Prussia. The title of “duke of Ratibor” was revived for his successor in 1840.