| Plauen | |
| Plauen and the city hall tower in the morning fog | |
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Plauen
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Location of the town of Plauen within Vogtlandkreis district
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| Coordinates | |
| Administration | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | Saxony |
| Admin. region | Chemnitz |
| District | Vogtlandkreis |
| Town subdivisions | 5 town boroughs with 38 parts |
| Lord Mayor | Ralf Oberdorfer (FDP) |
| Basic statistics | |
| Area | 102.12 km2 (39.43 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 412 m (1352 ft) |
| Population | 66,098 (31 December 2010)[1] |
| - Density | 647 /km2 (1,676 /sq mi) |
| Other information | |
| Time zone | CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) |
| Licence plate | V |
| Postal codes | 08523;-5;-7;-9 |
| Area code | 03741 |
| Website | www.plauen.de |
Plauen is a town in the Free State of Saxony, east-central Germany.
It is the capital of the Vogtlandkreis. The town is situated near the border of Bavaria and the Czech Republic.
Plauen's slogan is Plauen - echt Spitze.
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The town was founded by Polabian Slavs in the 12th century and was passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1327. Captured from the Archbishop of Magdeburg in 1384 by Lippold von Bredow. It passed to Albertine Saxony in 1466 and to the Electorate of Saxony in 1569. It became part of the Kingdom of Saxony in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
In the late 19th century, Plauen became a textile manufacturing center, specializing in lace. Around 1910 Plauen, as a kind of industrial 'boomtown', reached its population peak (1910 census: 121,000, 1912: 128,000).
In the 1930s Plauen earned the distinction of hosting the first chapter of the Nazi Party outside of Bavaria. Plauen's population has shrunk dramatically since World War II (1939: 111,000 inhabitants).
From 1945 on, Plauen belonged to the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, from 1949 to 1990 to the German Democratic Republic. During that time it hosted a large Red Army occupation garrison and in the last years of the East German state the officer school of the border guards ("Grenztruppen der DDR"). The first mass demonstration against the socialistic regime in the GDR began in Plauen at the 7th October 1989 and it was the beginning of a series of mass demonstrations in the whole GDR which ultimately led to the unification of Germany in 1990. The exposé Fast Food Nation gives special mention to Plauen as the first town in East Germany following the collapse of the Berlin Wall to have a McDonald's restaurant.
In the district reform of July 1, 2008, Plauen lost its urban district status and was included into the district of Vogtlandkreis.
Plauen (Vogtland) Oberer station is on the Leipzig–Hof line. The section of this line through Plauen is part of the Saxon-Franconian trunk line, connecting Nuremberg, Hof, Plauen, Zwickau, Chemnitz and Dresden. The town also has a station, Plauen (Vogtland) Unterer (lower) station, on the Elster Valley Railway.
Plauen is home to a University of Applied Sciences, with about 300 students and a DIPLOMA Fachhochschule.
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