Cham (; cs, Kouba) is the capital of the district of Cham in the

Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Location

Cham lies within the Cham-Furth lowland, which is bordered on the south by the

Bavarian Forest The village of Zell in the Bavarian Forest The Bavarian Forest (German: ' or ''Bayerwald''; bar, Boarischa Woid) is a wooded, low-mountain region in Bavaria, Germany that is about 100 kilometres long. It runs along the Czech border and is co ...

and on the north by the Oberpfälzer Wald. The city lies on the

Regen River The Regen (; ) is a river in Bavaria, Germany, and a left tributary of the Danube, at Regensburg, Germany. The source of its main headstream, the Great Regen (''Großer Regen''), is in the Bohemian Forest on the territory of the Czech Republic, ne ...

, which joins the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

at Regensburg.

Etymology

The name "Cham" is of Celtic origin and probably means "bend" or "curvature". In fact, a few kilometers from the city, a winding

brook A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler *BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programming ...

called the Chamb flows into the Regen; it probably gave its name to Cham, the first settlement at the bend of the larger river. Alternatively, the name may have derived from ''Kamm'' (comb). The city's coat of arms contains a comb. A partner city, also called "

Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albania ...

" in Switzerland, is actually pronounced with an initial "ch" sound (Ach-Laut), whereas Bavarian Cham is pronounced with a .

History

Monks A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

from Regensburg founded the Marienmünster, the first and oldest church in the Bavarian forest, at Chammünster in the 8th century. The first reference to Cham as a city appears in 976. An imperial castle stood on the Galgenberg (German: "gallows hill"), providing protection for the trade route into Bohemia. Cham was granted its own

currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general ...

around 1000, the so-called Cham Denar. The 12th century saw the town's location shifted to its current place. The

Hussite Wars The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, European monarchs loyal to the Cat ...

of the 15th century inflicted great hardships on the townspeople. In 1742, the

Pandur The Pandurs were any of several light infantry military units beginning with Trenck's Pandurs, used by the Kingdom of Hungary from 1741, fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Silesian Wars. Others to follow included Vladimirescu' ...

troops of Franz Freiherr von der Trenck overran and destroyed the city. Cham's first

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

connection came in 1861. On April 18, 1945, a British air raid on the western part of Cham caused 63 deaths. The arrival of numerous German war refugees from

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

and the Sudetenland swelled Cham's population from 5,860 to over 10,000. Cham is referred to in relation to the death of the father of the French resistance fighter

Jeannette Guyot Jeannette Guyot (26 February 1919 – 10 April 2016) was a French Resistance operative who went on to become one of the Second World War's most decorated women. Guyot undertook numerous dangerous missions in Occupied France moving fugitives, col ...

, Jean-Marie Guyot. He was also a member of the resistance, arrested early 1944 and transported to Cham, where he died.

International relations

Cham, Germany is twinned with: *

, Switzerland *

Klatovy Klatovy (; german: Klattau) is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 22,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone. Administrative parts Klatovy is made up of 30 ...

, Czech Republic *

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

Notable people

* Anne of Bohemia (1323–1338), a sister of Emperor Charles IV, later Duchess consort of

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, Styria and Carinthia *

Nicolas Luckner Nicolas, Count Luckner (german: Johann Nikolaus, Graf Luckner; 12 January 1722, Cham in der Oberpfalz – 4 January 1794, Paris) was a German officer in French service who rose to become a Marshal of France. Luckner grew up in Cham, in eastern ...

(1722–1794),

Marshal of France Marshal of France (french: Maréchal de France, plural ') is a French military distinction, rather than a military rank, that is awarded to generals for exceptional achievements. The title has been awarded since 1185, though briefly abolished ( ...

, to whom the

Marseillaise "La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du R ...

was dedicated * Karl Stern (1906–1975), professor of

neurology Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...

and

psychiatry Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...

, author; a street in Cham is named after him. * Fritz Zängl (1914–1942), German skier, born in Katzbach, now Cham *

Ernie Stautner Ernest Alfred Stautner (April 20, 1925 – February 16, 2006) was a German-American professional American football coach and defensive tackle in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also served as a coach for the Pittsburg ...

(1925–2006), German-born

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

– coach and poker player * Wolfgang Gedeon (born 1947), physician, author and politician (AfD) * Max Deml (born 1957), publisher, writer, entrepreneur *

Christoph Janker Christoph Janker (born 14 February 1985) is a German former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. Career TSV 1860 Munich Janker started out in 1860 Munich's youth system. He played for the reserve team in the 2004–05 season, m ...

(born 1985), football defender

References

{{Authority control Cham (district)