Lanškroun


Lanškroun, also known as Lanskron, Lanscron, Landeskrone or Kronland, is a town and municipality in the Ústí nad Orlicí District, Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It is on the border between the former provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, and it has a population of approximately 10,000.

History

The town was founded in the 13th century as the center of the estate of Lanškroun and Lanšperk. Until 1918, the town was part of the Austrian monarchy, as the seat of the district Landskron in Bömen, one of the 94 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Bohemia. After 1919 it became part of Czechoslovakia. In 1938 it was occupied by German troops as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, according to the Munich Agreement.
On May 9, 1945, the day of the end of World War II in Europe, Soviet troops entered the city. On May 17, 1945, Czech partisan units held court in Landskron, and many Germans were tortured to death.
Until the expulsion of most of the German speaking population from the Czechoslovakia in 1945, the majority of population of the town had been German: in 1930, there were 6497 inhabitants and among these 83% were German and 17% Czech. By now, most of the inhabitants are Czech people.

List of people

Lanškroun is twinned with: