Varnsdorf

Varnsdorf is a town in Decin District in the Usti nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic, with about 15,000 inhabitants. It lies on the Mandau River in the Lusatian Highlands, right on the border with Germany, and is known mainly for its textile and engineering industries. The village was founded in the first half of the 13th century and first written down in 1357. The Liechtenstein family owned the estate from 1681 to 1919. In 1849 Old Varnsdorf merged with five smaller villages to form a municipality that was the largest in the Austrian Empire without town rights, and it became a town in 1868. After 1918 it belonged to Czechoslovakia, and after the Second World War most of its ethnic German population was expelled. About 2,500 Vietnamese Buddhists live in and around the town, which has the first Vietnamese Buddhist temple in the Czech Republic.