The historic town of 2023 is Žatec

Prague – Today, Žatec in the Louny region of the Ústí nad Labem region was named the Historical Town of the Year 2023. The award is a reward for the best use of funds for the restoration of monuments from the Ministry of Culture’s program. The award, along with a monetary prize of one million Czech crowns for further care of the monuments, was received by the mayor of the town, Radim Laibl, in the deconsecrated Church of the Prague Crossroads. Last year, Žatec and the landscape of Žatec hops became part of the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

The competition is organized by the Association of Historical Settlements of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, along with the two ministries of culture and local development. They recognize the best application of grants from the Ministry of Culture's program for the regeneration of urban monument reservations and zones. Funds for repairs are pooled from state, municipal, and private ownership sources. The title of Historical Town of the Year is annually announced on the occasion of the International Day for Monuments and Sites, which falls on April 18. The winner was selected by a jury from 14 regional winners. This year, Žatec was declared the national winner for the Ústí nad Labem region for the eighth consecutive time.

"I would like to thank the previous city leadership, which systematically worked for a long time so that we could stand here today to accept this award, and that we could be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List exactly seven months ago today. It was a long-term effort, about twenty years," said the mayor of Žatec, Laibl, upon receiving the award. "We will continue because we believe we are on the right path to return Žatec to where it belongs," he added.

Žatec was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on September 18, 2023, and is listed as the first hop-growing landscape in the world. The registered monument consists of a landscape with hop fields and the villages of Trnovany and Stekník, including the castle of the same name, as well as the historical center of Žatec along with the heritage zone, which contains the highest concentration of buildings related to hop processing. This was the seventeenth inscription for the Czech Republic on the UNESCO World Natural and Cultural Heritage List.

Žatec is known for its tradition of hop cultivation, which has influenced the history of the region for more than 800 years. Hops and brewing gave rise to an entire district in the city center, where hops were processed and stored. The zone of technical monuments related to hops was declared a municipal heritage zone in 2003. The extraordinary value lies in the large number of unique hop cultivation structures within a small area in the very historical core of the city, while preserving the original medieval street structure. The Municipal Heritage Zone contains 12 immovable cultural monuments.

The historical center of Žatec, declared a monument reservation in 1961, offers a number of significant buildings and stylistic diversity from the Romanesque period to Art Nouveau. Notable buildings include the Holy Trinity Column, the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary from the early 14th century, the town hall building, which was rebuilt in the Renaissance style in 1559, the second largest Jewish synagogue in Bohemia, and historical burgher houses. Last year, Žatec drew 530,442 CZK from the Ministry of Culture's regeneration program for four monument restoration projects.

An award of 100,000 CZK was granted to towns that reached the national round of the competition. This year, these towns included Prachatice, Cheb, Jičín, Šternberk, Chrudim, Uherské Hradiště, Kolín, Prague 1, the South Moravian town of Lomnice, Jablonec nad Nisou, Opava, Horažďovice, and Moravské Budějovice. Two of them, Jablonec nad Nisou and Moravské Budějovice, received the Minister for Local Development's award and an additional 100,000 CZK.

In the Czech Republic, there are about 40,000 immovable monuments, 39 urban monument reservations, and 255 urban monument zones. Since 1993, the state has allocated over six billion CZK in the Program for the Regeneration of Urban Monument Reservations and Zones, and approximately 19,100 monuments have been repaired. Including funds from property owners, a total of 15.3 billion CZK has been spent on monument care.