Bata Canal

A unique technical monument built between 1934 and 1938.

It was the important Czech industrial magnate Tomáš Bata, who came up with the idea of building an inland canal from Otrokovice to Rohatec. After his tragic death in 1932, his stepbrother Jan Antonín Bata took charge of the project. He built a works, which made the old dream to interconnect Danube, Odra, and Elbe come true. The main task of the canal, however, was the construction of a melioration system along the Morava River, and the transport of brown coal from the mines in Ratíškovice to the Bata leather manufacturing factories and heating plants in Otrokovice.

The canal led partially through the navigable riverbed of the Morava River, a half of the canal was digged out. Along the entire route, some interesting constructions were built: lock chambers with small houses for the operators, side weirs, a cableway to pull the boats, road and railway bridges, footbridges, folding bridges, a drawbridge for the narrow gauge railway, etc.  A part of those devices came to the end of their operational life; a part was destroyed through the crossing of a front line in 1945. The transport began to stagnate, the canal became silted, and in 1972, it lost even the statute of a waterway.

Only at the outset of the 1990s, the idea was renewed to put the Canal into operation for touristic purposes. Nowadays, the cruises run on the waterway between Otrokovice and Skalica in Slovakia and on the separate river sections between Kroměříž and Otrokovice, and Rohatec and Hodonín.

Location:

Link to map:              www.mapy.cz 

GPS coordinates:      48°57'16.405"N, 17°22'21.262"E

Bata Canal Information Centre

Address:   náměstí Míru 664, Veselí nad Moravou 698 01

Tel:           +420 518 325 330

E-mail:       This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

Web:         www.batacanal.cz 

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