Březové Hory

Březové Hory
Březové Hory
Town part
	J. A. Alis Square
	Březové Hory Location in the Czech Republic
	Coordinates: 49°41′18″N 13°59′25″E / 49.68833°N 13.99028°E
Country	Czech Republic
Region	Central Bohemian
District	Příbram
Municipality	Příbram
First mentioned	1300
Elevation	545 m (1,788 ft)
Population (2011)
• Total	1,655
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code	261 01

Příbram VI-Březové Hory (until 1953 Březové Hory; German: Birkenberg) is a town part of Příbram in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Until 1953, it was a separate town. It is known as a former royal mining town.

Etymology

The name literally means "Birch Mountains".

Geography

The Litavka River partially forms the border with Podlesí.

History

The first evidence of silver mining in Březové Hory dates from the 14th century. At the beginning of the 16th century a mining settlement was established near the silver-ore mines, it was promoted to a market town in the 18th century. It reached its greatest fame at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, when five underground mines were gradually open. The volume of mined silver then reached up to 97% of all mined silver in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and Březové Hory became the main silver producer in Europe. This is one of the reasons why the town was promoted to a royal mining town on 20 April 1896 by Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Since the beginning of the 20th century there has been a gradual decline in mining, but thanks to the state subsidies mining continued until 1978. In 1953 Březové Hory became part of Příbram.^[2] After mining was terminated, several mining buildings were converted to Mining Museum Příbram. It is the largest mining museum in the Czech Republic.

Cultural monuments

In Březové Hory there are many preserved mines and other buildings designated as the Czech cultural monuments, some of them are on the national cultural monument list.