Mariánské Lázně

Mariánské Lázně, known in German as Marienbad, is a spa town in Cheb District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic, with about 14,000 inhabitants. It lies on the border between the Teplá Highlands and the Podčeskoleská Hills inside the Slavkovský les Protected Landscape Area, about 25 kilometres southeast of Cheb and 55 kilometres southwest of Karlovy Vary, and it is a railway junction and a popular holiday resort. The town grew around its carbon dioxide mineral springs, whose curative use was promoted from 1779 by the physician Josef Nehr of Teplá Abbey; it took its name Marienbad in 1808 and was promoted to a town in 1868. Its golden era ran from about 1870 to 1914, when many hotels and colonnades were built and rulers and celebrities came to take the waters. After the Second World War the German-speaking population was expelled and the town was repopulated by Czechs. Since 2021 the town centre has been part of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site Great Spa Towns of Europe.