Aš

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Statistics
Area:	55.8 km²
Population:	12,866 (2004)
Map

Aš (IPA: [aʃ], German: Asch) is a city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic.

[edit] History

The town was founded in the 11th century by German colonists. The dialect spoken in the town was that of the Upper Palatinate, also known as northern Bavarian. In the adjacent Saxon Vogtland, which borders Karlovy Vary on the north, this dialect is only found in localities lying on the Czech border such as Adorf and Markneukirchen. The Upper Palatinate dialect has a stronger presence in the Bad Brambach region, where it is known as Southern Vogtlandic (Südvogtländisch).

The first recorded rulers were the Vögte von Weida, who gave the Bohemian Vogtland region its name. In 1281, they turned control of the region over to the Holy Roman Emperor.

1331 – Town and lands purchased by king John I of Bohemia.

1394 – Konrad von Neuburg dies without a male heir, and by virtue of Hedwig von Neuburg's marriage to Konrad von Zedtwitz, Aš passes into the control of the Zedtwitz family.

1557 – Region claimed for the Bohemian crown by Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, bur remains Protestant.

1775 – Aš obtains freedom of religion from Maria Theresia.

1854 – A county legal code is granted to the region, ending five centuries of legal control by the Zedtwitz family.

1864 – Aš is linked to the Eger – Hof railway line.

1872 – City status obtained, as the population grows due to a flourishing textile industry.

1918 – A soldiers' council seizes power and rejects the demands of separatists from Eger for annexation to Bavaria.

1937 – The Third Reich aligned Sudeten German Party takes over in Aš. Czech residents leave.

March 21, 1938 – Aš region occupied by Sudeten German Freikorps.

1939 – Population approximately 23,000.

April 20, 1945 – Occupied by U.S. Army.

After the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia in 1946, the city's population was reduced to scarcely half its former number. Factories and workplaces were closed. The population shrank further in 1950 due to the establishment of the Iron Curtain nearby, with more businesses shuttered.