Bardejov ( pronunciation ; German: Bartfeld, Hungarian: Bártfa, Rusyn: Бардеёв, Polish: Bardiów) is a town in North-Eastern Slovakia. It is situated in the Šariš region on a floodplain terrace of the Topľa River, in the hills of the Beskyd Mountains. It exhibits numerous cultural monuments in its completely intact medieval town center. The town is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites and currently maintains a population of about 30,000 inhabitants.
The Hungarian name of the town comes from the word "bárd" (English: "chopper"), which indicated an amount of forested territory which could be chopped down by one man in one day. In the Hungarian name (Bártfa), the "fa" (English: "tree") suffix came later, and it also changed the last letter of "bárd" to "bárt", for easier pronunciation.
The territory of present-day Bardejov has attracted settlers since the Stone Age. Traces of human settlements in Bardejov can be traced back to around 20,000 B.C. However, the first written reference to the town dates back to 1247, when monks from Bardejov complained to King Béla IV about a violation of the town’s borders by Prešov, a neighbouring city. There is mention of German settlers coming up from Prešov in these records as well. The city is mentioned in Hypatian Codex for 1240 when in the fall Daniel of Galicia passed it traveling from Hungary to Poland.