According to the researchers the town had a German majority until the mid-16th century,Károly Kocsis, Eszter Kocsisné Hodosi, Ethnic Geography of the Hungarian Minorities in the Carpathian Basin, Simon Publications LLC, 1998, p. 46-47 and by 1650, 72.5% of the population may have been Hungarians, 13.2% was German, 14.3% was Slovak or of uncertain origin. The Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi mentioned that the city was inhabited by "Hungarians, Germans, Upper Hungarians" in 1661 when the city was under the suzerainty of Ottoman Empire and under Turkish control.
