1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Segesvár

SEGESVÁR (Ger. Schässburg), a town of Hungary, in Transylvania, the capital of the county of Nagy-Küküllö, 126 m. S.E. of Koloszvár by rail. Pop. (1900) 10,857. Amongst the principal buildings are a Gothic church of the 15th century, the town and county hall, a German gymnasium with a good collection of antiquities, and the municipal museum. In front of the county hall is a bronze statue of the Hungarian poet Alexander Petöfi (1823–1849), erected in 1897. Segesvár has a good woollen and linen trade, as well as exports of wine and fruit.

Segesvár was founded by Saxon colonists at the end of the 12th century; its Latin name was Castrum Sex. Here, on the 31st of July 1849, the Hungarian army under Bem was defeated by the overwhelming numbers of the Russian General Lüders. Petöfi is generally believed to have met his end in this battle.