Rokycany

Rokycany is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic with about 14,000 inhabitants, standing on the Klabava River in the Švihov Highlands roughly 14 kilometres east of Plzeň. It was founded no later than the early twelfth century, appears in the Chronica Boemorum in 1110 when it belonged to the Bishop of Prague, and received town privileges in 1406. Its name comes from rokycan, an Old Czech word for a person living near willows. Fires in 1757 and 1784 destroyed much of the medieval town, but the square Masarykovo náměstí still holds most of its cultural monuments, among them a Baroque town hall by Ignác Jan Nepomuk Palliardi and the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. On 7 May 1945 United States troops halted their eastward advance here and met Soviet forces, the first such meeting in Czechoslovakia. The historic centre is protected as an urban monument zone, and the town hosts the Fluff Fest hardcore punk festival each July.