0969 CZECH REPUBLIC (Central Bohemia) - Kutná Hora: Historical Town Centre with the Church of St Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec (UNESCO WHS)

The town of Kutná Hora began in 1142 with the settlement of the first Cistercian monastery in Bohemia, Sedlec Monastery, on whose property German miners began to mine for silver in 13th century. The town developed with great rapidity, so that between the 13th and 16th centuries it competed with Prague economically, culturally and politically. Along with the rest of Bohemia, Kuttenberg (Kutná Hora) passed to the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria in 1526. The flooding of the richest mine, the loss of privileges, the plague and the horrors of the Thirty Years' War led to the ruin of the city. The mines were abandoned at the end of the 18th century. Bohemia was a crownland of the Austrian Empire in 1806, in the Austrian monarchy after the compromise of 1867, and part of Czechoslovakia after WWI. Since 1995 the city center has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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