Beroun (German: Beraun) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region
and a municipality with extended powers. It lies at the confluence
of the Berounka and Litavka rivers, less than 30 km southwest of the
center of Prague. Approximately 20,000 people live here. It is
structurally connected with the neighboring town of Králův Dvůr.
With its strategic location at the junction of Prague and
Pilsen, Beroun has been an important crossroads, a place of trade
and production, since the Middle Ages. After the introduction of a
fast connection with Prague on the D5 motorway, it is increasingly
becoming part of the suburban area of the Czech capital, from where
people commute to work in Prague.
Beroun is located in a
hilly landscape on the border of protected landscape areas of the
Czech Karst and the Křivoklát region. Together with its historical
monuments (the frequency of which led to the declaration of the
historic core of the city as a city monument zone in 1992), it also
makes it an important starting point for tourist routes.
According to Otto's educational dictionary, the
founding of Beroun goes deep into the past. Perhaps as early as
1088, but certainly in 1179, the village of Brod with its
inhabitants, peasants and fishermen used to stand here, and on the
other side of the river in the meadows, the village of Podolí. Here
used to be the main ford and ferry on the way from Prague to Pilsen.
About King Wenceslas I, German settlers built the present city.
Brod is first named in a document of King Přemysl Otakar II from
1265. According to the work of the leading expert on the time of the
Přemyslid kings, Professor Josef Žemlička, Beroun is associated with
the foundations founded by this great king. The town-forming process
in Bohemia and Moravia began under Přemysl Otakar I and did not stop
under Václav I. Nevertheless, by the middle of the 13th century, the
number of towns had barely exceeded twenty-five. Until Přemysl
Otakar II imprinted the necessary dynamics on the urbanization pace.
The network of royal cities was thus thickened and practically
completed, so that his successors were left with only details. There
are more than 40 cities founded or promoted to a city by Přemysl
Otakar II or the incorporation of already established settlements
into its foundations. Josef Žemlička lists Přemysl Otakar II in his
work. the king at the turn of the ages were the essential cities,
connected with the town-building and foundation activities of
Přemysl Otakar II, which had no analogues either before or after
him, and Beroun is also mentioned in that series.
In the
years 1278–1283, ie after the battle on the Moravian field, where
Přemysl Otakar II was killed, the city abandoned and had to be
rebuilt during the time of Wenceslas II. The city was then heavily
fortified (the walls were built in the first half of the 14th
century) and equipped with two gates. However, its importance
declined again after the Thirty Years' War. From the 18th century,
Beroun became the so-called garrison town, ie a town where there was
military cash.
In the 1960s, limestone mining began in the
vicinity of the town and other industries (textile and iron
industry) gradually developed. Thanks to the railway line from
Prague to Pilsen, which passes through the Berounka valley and, of
course, the city itself, Beroun has become a suitable place for the
establishment of new industrial plants, both southwest and northeast
of the city. Less important railway lines were also built to Rudná
or Rakovník, which also served for the transport of goods and thus
strengthened the importance of Beroun as an industrial city.
During the communist government, there was a massive construction of
first classical town houses, later panel housing estates and, last
but not least, new industrial plants (eg ironworks and rolling mills
and a large cement plant in Králové Dvůr). After the administrative
reform in 1960, Beroun remained a district town, one of several in
the Central Bohemian Region. The railway station was reconstructed
and given a modern check-in hall and platform. Some surrounding
villages were connected to the town (eg Králův Dvůr in 1980).
However, this period had a negative effect on the face of the city
in many ways. Although Beroun was relieved of traffic after the
construction of the D5 motorway (although very close to the city
center due to the nature of the terrain), during the forty years of
the communist period many monuments were destroyed, the environment
drastically deteriorated and traffic increased in general. The new
panel construction was located not only on the outskirts of the
city, as in many other settlements, but also in the immediate
vicinity of the historic center of Beroun.
In November 1990, the local part of Králův Dvůr, which was
located in the southwest of the city until then, broke away from
Beroun. The importance of economic, especially the importance of
industry, was suppressed after 1989. Factory production was
reoriented from heavy industry to light and medium (construction of
a new industrial zone). However, traditional limestone mining around
the city was not reduced much. After the year 2000, the
administrative significance was also suppressed - after the
abolition of the district offices, Beroun ceased to be the seat of
the district. The historic core of the city has been renovated; the
preserved fragments of the walls were repaired, both gates (Prague
and Pilsen), and a pedestrian zone was created on the main square.
The city has come to life culturally again. The new construction,
which now has the character of mainly family houses, has been
concentrated in the area between Beroun and Králové Dvor and is
complemented by various logistics complexes that use the proximity
of the highway from Prague to Pilsen (the Beroun - Králův Dvůr
conurbation is created).
Territorial integration
The
history of territorial administrative integration includes the
period from 1850, when the former Beroun Region ceased to exist, to
the present. The chronological overview shows the territorial
administrative affiliation of the municipality in the year when the
change occurred:
1850 Czech land, region Prague, political
district Smíchov, court district Beroun
1855 Czech land, region
Prague, court district Beroun
1868 Czech land, political district
Hořovice, court district Beroun
1936 Czech lands, political and
judicial district of Beroun
1939 Czech lands, Oberlandrat Kolín,
political and judicial district Beroun
1942 Czech lands,
Oberlandrat Prague, political and judicial district Beroun
1945
Czech land, administrative and judicial district Beroun
1949
Prague Region, Beroun District
1960 Central Bohemian Region,
Beroun District
2003 Central Bohemian Region, Beroun District,
municipality with extended powers Beroun
Year 1932
The
following trades and shops were registered in the town of Beroun
(13,143 inhabitants) in 1932:
Institutions: district court, tax
office, pension control office, gendarmerie station, post office,
telegraph office, telephone office, churches (2 Catholic, 2
Evangelical, Czechoslovak, synagogue), okr. ver. general. hospital,
city poorhouse, state real grammar school, business academy,
economic school, vocational school of textile, vocational school of
horticulture, vocational school of tailoring, girls' family school,
okr. Supplementary Command, Infantry Regiment 38.
Trades and
industry: business board, community of related crafts, communities
of tailors, shoemakers, butchers, innkeepers, painters, carpenters
and related industries, asphalt-cement slate factory (eternit),
Králodvorská cement plant, 4 brickyards, sugar factory Pečecké sugar
refinery, power plant Beroun, isolation plant, 4 mills, 3 sawmills,
2 sand pits, ball bearing factory, furniture factory, brewery
brewery, farm machinery factory, bakery machinery factory, dough
factory, cotton weaving mill, 2 lime plants, 2 large estates.
Services (selection): 7 doctors, 2 dentists, 2 veterinarians, 5
lawyers, notary, 2 garages, Czech Industrial Bank in Beroun, Central
Bohemian Bank in Příbram, 2 cinemas (Excelsior, Sokol), 6 magazines,
4 drugstores, 4 photo studios , 2 surveyors, 5 watchmakers, 23 inns,
6 hotels (Black Horse, Czech Court, Grünwald, Pek, Plzeňka, Three
Crowns), 2 music schools, 2 cafes (Sport, U černého koně), 2
bookstores, 2 pharmacies, optician , 10 restaurants, Městská
spořitelna, Okresní hospodářská záložna, Úvěrní ústav, Živnostenská
záložna, 7 builders, wine bar, goldsmith, 2 dental studios, 3
hardware stores.
In the village of Hostim (230 inhabitants, an
independent village later became part of Beroun) the following
trades and shops were registered in 1932: production of cement
goods, photo studio, stone quarry, 2 inns, mill, 2 general store,
newsagent, large estate.