Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; MILITARY GEOGRAPHY CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110011-1.pdf/17

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110011-1


FIGURE 13. Ostrava-Karvina strategic area (C)


Ostrava (population 288,000 in 1973) (Figure 14) and Karvina (population 79,000 in 1973) (Figure 15). The area's hard coal reserves represent more than 96% of the country's total, and its output (over 24 million metric tons in 1972) accounts for over 80% of the country's production. A large new town, Havirov (83,000 population) is a residential center for coal miners. Iron and steel production (about 6.4 million metric tons in 1972) as well as steel products account for more than half of the national output. There are two large, fully integrated steel mills in Ostrava (Figure 16), and one at Trinec (population 31,000). Other steel products plants are at Novy Bohumin (population 14,000), Frydek-Mistek (population 42,000) and Karvina. This metallurgical complex produces a wide range of finished steel products including pipes, tubes, bridges, railroad car wheels, boilers, building and mining machinery, steel wires, and entire equipment for metallurgical and chemical plants, such as blast furnaces, coke ovens, and rolling mills. Chemical plants produce a wide variety of organic and inorganic chemicals including ammonia, sulfuric and nitric acid, nitrogen fertilizers, urea, benzene, toluene, phenol, pesticides, and plastic goods. Thermal powerplants concentrated in the area have an aggregate installed capacity of more than 1.1 million kilowatts. Ostrava is an important transportation center with excellent railroad and highway connections to other parts of the country and into Poland mainly via the border down of Cesky Tesin


FIGURE 14. Ostrava is the country's most important center of metallurgy and hard coal pit mining. The city dominates the Ostrava-Karvina Coal Basin which, combined with the adjoining Polish Upper Silesian complex, constitutes the "Ruhr" of Communist East Europe. (U/OU)


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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110011-1