OTTAWA — Thomas Bata, who moved his family business to Canada ahead of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and later became, as he put it, “shoemaker to the world,” died in Toronto on Monday. He was 93.

Bata died in a hospital, Leslie Tenenbaum, the general counsel for Bata, said. The family is not disclosing the cause of death, he said.

Bata’s footwear is not well known among fanciers of designer shoes from Manolo Blahnik or fans of the latest sneakers from Nike. But Bata made the company, which was founded by his father, so pervasive in the developing world that, according to Tenenbaum, Bata became a generic noun for shoe in some parts of it, particularly in Africa. It is, Tenenbaum added, a situation that somewhat dismays him in his role as the protector of the company’s trademarks.

Bata, who was born in Prague on Sept. 17, 1914, gradually assumed control of the family business after his father’s death in 1932. Bata was already a substantial operation at that time. Based in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, the company was then making about 36 million pairs of shoes a year and exporting to the U.S. and Asia.

With Europe apparently heading toward war in 1938, it was decided that Bata should establish a North American operation. In his autobiography “Bata, Shoemaker to the World,” written with Sonja Sinclair, Bata recalled that Canada was picked, at least in part, because of the “romantic tales about the Wild West and about northern explorers” his mother had read to him as a child. To Bata’s dismay, when he arrived in Canada in 1939 he found its countryside and cities to be rundown and dirty compared with those of Europe.

Bata fought in the Canadian army during World War II. The war’s aftermath was devastating for the company. Many of its facilities had been destroyed, and many of those that survived had been nationalized. A complex holding company structure, however, meant that the Bata family still controlled substantial assets.

While the company invested in developing the Canadian business as well as in rebuilding traditional markets in Western Europe, its greatest success came in regions where factory-made shoes had made few inroads.

That expansion sometimes brought Bata into negotiations with infamous political leaders, like Idi Amin in Uganda, and the policies of some countries created public relations and diplomatic headaches for Bata and the government of Canada. Under pressure from the Canadian government, Bata sold its South African operation because of apartheid. While he was opposed to the system, Bata said in his autobiography, he would have preferred to stay and continue providing employment, health care and educational services.

Bata also made it clear that the company’s move into less-developed markets was primarily motivated by business concerns.

“We expanded into Africa in order to sell shoes, not to spread sweetness and light,” he said.

His company now employs an estimated 40,000 workers in factories in 25 countries and sells about 300 million pairs of shoes a year. Bata’s son, Thomas George Bata, became chairman and chief executive of the company in 2001, but the elder Bata remained active in its operations and carried business cards listing his title as “chief shoe salesman.” At his death, Bata was planning a tour of the company’s European operations.

The company is still family owned, but little of it remains in Canada. Its headquarters are now in Lausanne, Switzerland

After the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Bata returned in 1989, to the Czech Republic, at the invitation of President Vaclav Havel. He was greeted by crowds at the airport of his birthplace and later re-established operations in the country that had once nationalized his company. Bata made several return trips and established a charitable foundation there.