"Just a hop, skip and a jump over the... " a Sopron Travel Page by morgenhund

Sopron initially became popular with Austrians flooding over to take advantage of low cost dental treatment, cheaper shopping and duty free cigarettes, and to a certain extent there still are a lot of Austrians who pour over the border for these reasons. The city dates back to the times of the Roman Empire, when there was a settlement called Scarbantia. After the town was deserted, it lay in ruins until the Hungarians arrived, with the old city walls being strengthened and a castle built in the 9th to 11th centuries and the name Suprun was adopted - named after a knight's steward called Suprun. During the middle ages there were various power struggles centred around Sopron and a lot of people deserted and left the city. It was the fire of 1676 which destroyed Sopron, and the city that now stands dates from the decades after this great fire - with Baroque architecture dominating.

When the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and Double Monarchy) broke up as a result of World War I, Sopron was awarded to Austria in the Treaties of St.Germain (1919) and Trianon (1920) as part of four counties that were handed over. It reverted to Hungarian rule after a plebiscite in December 1921, along with 8 surrounding villages. This reverting to being Hungarian (as opposed to being the Austrian Ödenburg) led to the town being called "Civitas Fidelissima" (The Most Loyal Town), as all the other counties which had been handovered over to the Austrians remained Austrian.