Kadaň

Kadaň is a town of about 18,000 people in the Chomutov District of the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic, on the banks of the Ohře River between the Most Basin and the Doupov Mountains, about 13 kilometres southwest of Chomutov. It was probably founded as a market settlement at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries and was promoted to a free royal town around 1260, when its castle was built. The first written mention dates from 1183. The Hussites took it in 1421, and in 1534 the Kadaň religious peace was negotiated here. After 1918 a demonstration here ended in the Kadaň massacre of March 1919, and after the Second World War its German population was expelled. The historic centre is an urban monument reservation, and its Franciscan Monastery and late Gothic town hall are national cultural monuments. It is known as a tourist centre.