Bjelovar

Bjelovar lies near the low hills of Bilogora in central Croatia. Its orderly streets were laid out as the headquarters of regiments of the Varaždin Generalate, part of the Habsburg Military Frontier. Long before the planned town arose, settlements and trading places stood in the surrounding country; during the Ottoman wars the area became part of a fortified borderland.

In 1756 Maria Theresa ordered a new military centre to be established here, with construction directed by Baron Philipp Lewin von Beck. Barracks and other military buildings came first. Two Piarist brothers arrived in 1761 and opened a school, while a parish church dedicated to Saint Teresa of Ávila was completed in 1772. Maria Theresa confirmed Bjelovar's privileges as a military community in 1771, encouraging its population and economy to grow. By the early nineteenth century the town had begun to spread beyond its original plan.