Cheb is a town in the district of the same name in the Karlovy Vary region, 40 km southwest of Karlovy Vary and 5 km from the border with Germany on the river Ohře. The first historically preserved mention of Cheb, the central city of the former Cheb region, dates from 1061. Until the end of World War II, the majority of the population was German and Cheb was an important part of the Sudetenland. After the war, the German population was displaced and the city was largely depopulated. Approximately 32,000 people live here. There are seven primary schools, two secondary schools, one practical school, a grammar school and the Faculty of Economics of the University of West Bohemia in Cheb. The main industries here are engineering, textile, metalworking, construction, woodworking and food.
The first historically preserved mention of Cheb, the central
city of the former Cheb region, dates from 1061. Cheb fortified
settlement was inhabited in the 9th century by the Slavs. In 1146,
the Cheb region fell to Emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa, who had a
medieval castle (Palatinate) built here, which is still partially
preserved here. Cheb was promoted to a town in 1179. In January
1285, the wedding of the Czech King Wenceslas II took place in Cheb.
with the daughter of the Roman King Rudolf I. Jitka, then Cheb
belonged alternately to Bohemia and Germany, in 1322 Louis IV. With
the consent of the Chebs, Bavor pledged the Czech King Jan of
Luxembourg. The city was promised independence from the kingdom, but
lost the status of a free imperial city. The pledge was never paid.
On May 5, 1389, a peace treaty was signed here, between King
Wenceslas IV. and the Union of South German Imperial Cities, when
the king failed to advance his interests (see Cheb Peace Peace).
During the Hussite wars, Cheb, as a Catholic city, was actively on
the side of the anti-Hussite coalition. In the later Reformation,
however, the inhabitants of the city joined Lutheranism. Therefore,
after the Battle of Bílá Hora, during the post-White Mountain
period, Cheb did not avoid violent re-Catholicization either. The
townspeople hoped that the Saxon Elector would help the city regain
its lost special position, and thus its inhabitants would avoid
re-Catholicization. As late as 1649, the Saxon Elector interceded
with the emperor for Cheb in vain. Many local townspeople emigrated
from the country because of their faith, exiles from Cheb moved to
the cities of Annaberg-Buchholz, Nuremberg, Leipzig and Zwickau
(Germany).
On February 25, 1634, Albrecht of Wallenstein and
his officers at the castle were murdered in Cheb, in Pachelbel's
house on King George of Poděbrady Square behind Špalíček (today the
Cheb Museum [5]).
The autonomous tendencies associated with
the reference to the special position of Cheb within the lands of
the Czech Crown made the Habsburgs the final end in 1723, when they
made Cheb a free royal city (but for about another hundred years it
belonged to the Regensburg diocese). In this context, the adoption
of a pragmatic sanction on October 21, 1721 can be seen as the last
constitutional act of the Cheb region.
Although the
German-speaking Cheb region was a part of the Czech Crown Land from
1322, after the end of the First World War, the majority of the
local population was not satisfied with the newly formed
Czechoslovakia and demanded secession from the Czechoslovak Republic
and annexation to the newly formed German Austria. However, after
the arrival of the "Italian" legionnaires in 1919, their plans
failed to materialize. During the First Republic, the number of
Czechs who came to the border for work in Cheb increased
considerably. However, the anti-Czech sentiments of the German
population have been steadily increasing since 1933 and culminated
in 1938. The triumphant arrival of Adolf Hitler on October 3, 1938
crowned the crowded Cheb square crowned by the Munich Agreement,
thousands of Czechoslovaks and German anti-fascists and the
Sudetenland's annexation .
After 1945, the majority of the
German population was displaced to Germany, which caused a
significant decline in population (the pre-war state was not reached
until the 1990s). After the Velvet Revolution, a large community of
Vietnamese settled here, doing business in their markets.
In
the years 2020 and 2021, the covidu-19 pandemic hit Cheb with
extreme force, claiming 570 proven victims in the Cheb district on
10 May 2021. One in the district's 160 inhabitants succumbed to the
deadly virus. During January and February 2021, under an extreme
influx of patients, local health care collapsed. Doctors did not
manage to take care of patients who had to be transported to other
parts of the state.
Geological structure, relief and soils
Cheb is located in the
west of the Czech Republic near the border with Germany. Neighboring
towns are Františkovy Lázně and Aš in the northwest, Sokolov and
Karlovy Vary in the northeast and Mariánské Lázně and Tachov in the
southeast. A meridian with a value of 12 ° 22 'E and a parallel of
50 ° 04' N passes through the town. The average altitude is around
472 m above sea level. In the vicinity of Cheb there are dams Skalka
and Jesenice.