Zlín [key], city (1991 pop. 84,522), E Czech Republic, in Moravia, on the Dřevnice River. It is the center of the Czech shoe industry, which was founded in 1913 by Thomas Bata. Under the Bata family, the city grew into an almost self-sufficient factory community, influenced in its design by the garden city movement. Branches of the Bata shoe company opened throughout the world. Nationalized after World War II and then privatized, the former Bata facilities are no longer associated with the Bata company. Shoemaking has decline in importance; tires and other rubber goods, machinery, and animated films are also produced. There are museums on shoemaking and a university. From 1949 to 1993 Zlín was called Gottwaldov in honor of Klement Gottwald, Czechoslovakia's first Communist president.
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