Pernink () is a municipality and village in

Karlovy Vary District Karlovy Vary District () is a Okres, district in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. Its capital is the city of Karlovy Vary. Administrative division Karlovy Vary District is divided into two Districts of the Czech Republic#Municipalit ...

in the

Karlovy Vary Region The Karlovy Vary Region () is an administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the westernmost part of the country. It is named after its capital Karlovy Vary. It is known for spas, which include Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázně. ...

of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It has about 600 inhabitants.

Administrative division

Pernink consists of three municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census): *Pernink (589) *Bludná (0) *Rybná (8)

Geography

Pernink is located about north of

Karlovy Vary Karlovy Vary (; , formerly also spelled ''Carlsbad'' in English) is a spa town, spa city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 49,000 inhabitants. It is located at the confluence of the Ohře and Teplá (river), Teplá ri ...

. It lies in the

Ore Mountains The Ore Mountains (, or ; ) lie along the Czech–German border, separating the historical regions of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Saxony in Germany. The highest peaks are the Klínovec in the Czech Republic (German: ''Keilberg'') at ab ...

. The highest point is at above sea level. The village is situated in the valley of the Bílá Bystřice stream.

History

At the beginning of the 16th century, mining pioneers settled in the area which was dominated by dense forest at the time. According to legend, a bear found ore here. The legend is preserved in the coat of arms and also in the German name (''Bär'' = bear). In 1532, a settlement called ''Peringer'' was promoted to a mining town by the then owner of the estate, Jindřich Schlick. The town received further privileges in 1559 and 1562. The predominant industry was the mining of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

and

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

. The area between Pernink,

Abertamy Abertamy () is a town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 800 inhabitants. It is known as a winter sports centre. The town is historically associated with silver and tin mining and is located in ...

and

Horní Blatná Horní Blatná () is a town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 400 inhabitants. The town is historically associated with tin mining and is located in the Ore Mountain Mining Region, which is a UN ...

used to be called "silver triangle". Following the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, most of the

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

miners left to neighbouring

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

. Mining was gradually replaced by forestry and crafts. In the first half of the 19th century, Adalbert Meinl founded a textile factory. Small workshops for the manufacturing of wooden and iron products were established. In 1843, the town had almost 1,800 residents living in 207 houses. The economic situation was bolstered by the opening of the railway in 1899. In the inter-war period, the number of residents rose to approximately 3,500. From 1938 to 1945, it was annexed by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and administered as part of the

Reichsgau Sudetenland The Reichsgau Sudetenland was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945. It comprised the northern part of the ''Sudetenland'' territory, which was annexed from Czechoslovakia according to the 30 September 1938 Munich Agreement. ...

. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, almost 90% of the inhabitants were expelled. The area was resettled with hundreds of new Czech settlers in 1946. Following the closure of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

mines in

Jáchymov Jáchymov (; or ''Joachimsthal'') is a spa town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,300 inhabitants. Jáchymov has a long mining tradition, thanks to which it used to be the second most popu ...

, the number of residents decreased.

Demographics

Economy

Today, Pernink lives mainly from tourism. The municipality is a centre of winter and summer sports.

Transport

Pernink is located on the

Karlovy Vary–Johanngeorgenstadt railway Interior of Karlovy Vary train station

The Ka ...

. The local railway station is the second highest in the Czech Republic with an elevation of .

Sights

The Church of the Holy Trinity was built in 1714–1716. It has a tower in the Alpine style. The

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

in Pernink is at the highest altitude in the country. It is a significant technical monument. The former Bludná mining district is a part of

Ore Mountain Mining Region The Ore Mountain Mining Region (officially Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region; , ) is an industrial heritage landscape, over 800 years old, in the border region of the Ore Mountains between the German state of Saxony and North Bohemia in the ...

, protected as a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

Notable people

Rudolf Kippenhahn Rudolf Kippenhahn (24 May 1926 – 15 November 2020) was a German astrophysicist and science author. Biography Rudolf Kippenhahn was born in Pernink, Czechoslovakia. He originally studied mathematics and physics at the University of Erlangen-N ...

(1926–2020), German astrophysicist *

Rudolf Höhnl Rudolf Höhnl (born 21 April 1946 in Pernink) is a Czechoslovakian former ski jumper. He won the bronze medal in the individual large hill at the 1974 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun. Höhnl also competed for Czechoslovakia at ...

(born 1946), ski jumper

References

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Karlovy Vary District Villages in the Ore Mountains