Šurany is a town and a railroad hub in the Nové Zámky District, Nitra Region, southern Slovakia.

Alongside the main settlement, it has the boroughs of Kostolný Sek and Nitriansky Hrádok, both annexed 1976.

Geography

Šurany lies at an altitude of 123 metres (404 ft) above sea level and covers an area of 59.812 square kilometres (23.1 sq mi). It is located in the Danubian Lowland near the Nitra River, 13 kilometres (8 mi) away from Nové Zámky and around 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Bratislava.

Demographics

According to the 2001 census, the town had 10,491 inhabitants. 97.28% of inhabitants were Slovaks, 1.12% Hungarians, 0.64% Czechs. The religious make-up was 80.02% Roman Catholics, 14.76% people with no religious affiliation, and 1.19% Lutherans.

People

Šurany featured in a 2006 episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Stephen Fry. Fry was tracing his Jewish ancestry in the town, where his maternal grandfather Martin Neumann was a manager at the Šurany sugar factory and was recruited to work in the burgeoning sugar industry in Bury St Edmunds, England. Neumann and his wife Rosa Braun Neumann immigrated to Bury in 1926.