Kocs () is a village in
Komárom-Esztergom county,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
. It lies west of
Tata and north-west of
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
. A site of
horse-drawn vehicle
A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...
manufacture from the 1400s, the name is the source of the word ''
coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
'' and its equivalent in other languages such as:
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
''kočár'',
Slovak ''koč'',
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
''Kutsche'',
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
''koets'',
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
''cotxe'',
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
''cocchio'',
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, and
French ''coche'',
Scandinavian ''kusk'', and
Serbian ''кочија (kočija)''.
History
During the reign of King
Matthias Corvinus
Matthias Corvinus, also called Matthias I ( hu, Hunyadi Mátyás, ro, Matia/Matei Corvin, hr, Matija/Matijaš Korvin, sk, Matej Korvín, cz, Matyáš Korvín; ), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490. After conducting several mi ...
in the 1400s, the wheelwrights of Kocs began to build a cart with steel-spring suspension. This "
cart of Kocs" as the Hungarians called it (''kocsi szekér'') soon became popular all over Europe. The spread of the ''kocsi szekér'' has been linked by some theories personally to the king of Hungary
Ferdinand I, the younger brother of Charles V who became the king of Spain, Emperor of Germany, and lord of the Burgundian Netherlands, in the 16th century, and who promoted the comfortable, spring-suspended wagons among the wealthy European nobility. A 16th-century German depiction of a ''kocsi'' without springs puts this theory in doubt, however, and it is uncertain whether the springs or some other feature were responsible for the spread of the word throughout Europe.
["coach": ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 14 Oct. 2007] The
Thurn-und-Taxis-Post, the imperial post service, employed the first horse-drawn mail coaches in Europe since Roman times in 1650 –, as they started in the town of Kocs the use of these mail coaches gave rise to the term "coach".
In contemporary colloquial Hungarian the word "kocsi" is most often used to mean "car".
The coat of arms of the town, in addition to displaying a ram and the
Árpád stripes
Árpád stripes ( hu, Árpád-sávok) is the name of a particular heraldic and vexillologic configuration which has been in constant use since the early 13th century in particular in Hungarian heraldry. It can be seen in the left half of the curr ...
, also depicts an early model cart or wagon that refers to the wheelwrights' successful industry.
Notable people from Kocs
*
Mór Kóczán
Móric "Mór" Kóczán (; also known under the pseudonym Miklós Kovács; 8 January 1885 – 30 July 1972) was a Hungarian athlete and Calvinist pastor. Specialized for the throwing events, his best results came in the javelin throw, having won ...
(1885–1972), athlete and Calvinist pastor
*
Zoltán Székely
Zoltán Székely ( Hungarian: Székely Zoltán; 8 December 1903 in Kocs, Hungary – 5 October 2001 in Banff, Canada) was a violinist and composer.
Biography
Székely studied violin with Jenő Hubay and composition with Zoltán Kodály at the ...
(1903–2001), violinist and composer
Gallery
Image:Kocs légifotó1.jpg
Image:Kocs légifotó2.jpg
Image:Kocs légifotó3.jpg
References
External links
Street map (Hungarian)
Populated places in Komárom-Esztergom County
{{Komarom-geo-stub