Chrudim is a town in the Pardubice Region, also called the Athens of East Bohemia. It lies between the Železné hory and the Polabská nížina, 110 km east of Prague, 33 km from Hradec Králové and 10 km south of the regional capital Pardubice [2].

Location and landscape

Geomorphologically the town lies in the Svitavská tabule, part of the Česká tabule. South of the town rise the Železné hory, whose highest peak is Vestec at 668 m above sea level. The town lies at an altitude of 243 to 300 m above sea level [2].

The Chrudimka river flows through the town. Its source is about 20 km to the south-east in the Žďárské vrchy Protected Landscape Area, and after a course 108 km long it flows into the Elbe in Pardubice. The average discharge at the mouth is 6.01 m³/s. Near the municipality of Seč a valley reservoir stands on the river, which people widely use for recreation and water sports [2]. According to the town, the climate is warmer than average with average precipitation; the average temperature is 7 °C and the warmest month is July at 17.5 °C. The area has abundant groundwater reserves [2].

According to the town, its location in the Pardubice Region is strongly exposed, because nearby Pardubice is the population and economic centre of the region. Chrudim lies in the hinterland of the Hradec Králové–Pardubice agglomeration, which has just under 300,000 inhabitants and is the fifth most populous urbanised area in Czechia after Prague, Brno, Ostrava and the North Bohemian conurbation [2].

History

The territory of the town was settled several thousand years before the first written mention. Archaeological research documents a fortified settlement on the Pumberky hill north-east of the centre, dated to roughly six to seven thousand years ago. Very dense settlement dates from the time of the Lusatian culture (1200–900 BC). The first people whose name has survived were the Celts, who lived here from the 5th century BC until roughly the beginning of the Common Era [1]. In the 7th–8th centuries the Slavs arrived, and above the Chrudimka a hillfort arose, probably in the 9th century, one of the administrative centres of the early Czech state [1].

The first reliable written mention relates to the year 1055, when, according to the Chronicle of Cosmas, Duke Bretislav I died here. The founding of the royal town by Ottokar II of Bohemia, which took place some time before 1276, became an important milestone. The town lay on the land route from Prague to Moravia, which helped its development, and in the developed Middle Ages it ranked among the leading towns of the kingdom. From 1307 it was, with interruptions, a royal dowry town that provided income to the wives of Bohemian rulers, and this tradition lasted until the fall of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918 [1].

When the Hussite Wars (1419–1434) began, the town took a stand against the Catholics and the German-speaking part of the population left. Since then Chrudim and the whole Chrudim region have been almost exclusively Czech territory. The town also stood in opposition to the Habsburgs during the uprisings of the estates in 1547 and 1618–1621 and always paid dearly for it. From the 16th century the position of towns in the country weakened, but Chrudim remained an administrative centre [1].

The town was afflicted by epidemics, famines and natural disasters. The hillfort burned in the 11th and 12th centuries, and the town burned down shortly after its founding at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. It was hit hard by the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), when Protestants left it because of re-Catholicisation. Most recently it was struck by a great fire in two suburbs on 6 August 1850 and by several floods in the later decades of the 19th century [1].

The present character of a quiet provincial town took shape in the 18th and 19th centuries, also because the railway arrived only in 1871 and industry grew more slowly. Its economic and administrative importance declined, but the town gained in cultural life and education thanks to notable people and the support of institutions [1].

Notable people

Natives include the humanist scholar Viktorin Kornel ze Všehrd (about 1460–1520), author of a legal work on rights, courts and the land tablets, the National Revival dramatist, actor and director of the Estates Theatre Jan Nepomuk Štěpánek (1783–1844), and the inventor of the ship's propeller Josef Ressel (1793–1857). The composers Smetana, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns and Fibich and the painter Alphonse Mucha had a personal connection to the town [1].

Area and population

Chrudim covers 3,315 ha, three quarters of which is agricultural land. The built-up area takes up 175 ha, about 5%. Industrial areas of roughly 62 ha lie on the edges of the town, and economically used areas cover 83 ha, consisting mainly of the territory of the former engineering company Transporta, the newly built industrial zones Chrudim západ and Chrudim sever and the Májov locality with smaller businesses in trade, logistics and forwarding [2].

The population exceeded 15,000 in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s it kept growing, mainly in the parts Chrudim III and IV with prefabricated housing, and since the 1980s it has been stabilising. On 31 December 2018 it had 23,151 inhabitants. The most populous part is Chrudim IV (8,995), followed by Chrudim III (6,535) and Chrudim II (5,038). The smallest parts, of rural character, are Vestec, Vlčnov and Topol, each with at most 200 inhabitants; Medlešice has around 500 permanent residents [2].