Tachov

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Statistics
Area:	40.8 km²
Population:	12,640 (2004)
Map

Tachov (German: Tachau) is a city in Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic.

[edit] History

The area was inhabited by humans around 8,000-6,000 BCE. The first written document mentioning Tachov comes from 1115. A period of ravishing boom came over the place under Premysl Otakar II who had a new castle with a mighty round tower built of stone here. He also founded a town surrounded with walls near the castle. During the Hussite wars the city was several times besieged and conquered. The Thirty Years' War damaged the city considerably. In 1664, Jan A. Losy became new proprietor and his descendants passed the title to the Windisch-Grätz Family in 1784. The Losys started a conversion of the medieval castle to a large baroque château. The Windisch-Grätzs, in their turn, made large investments to rebuild the house in the classical style.

In 1945 most German-speaking inhabitants, the majority in the city, were expelled.

After the war, during the Russian occupation, the area was only partly repopulated. Not only by Czechs and Slovaks, but also by people from Romania, Ukraine etc. Later on uranium was found here and many adventureres moved to the area to work in the mines.

The mines were closed when the Russians left. After the "velvet revolution" (1989), German companies started to operate factories to make use of the cheap labour. However, Tachov area is still among the economically least developed Czech regions.