Tábor

(the royal city since 1437)

34,350 inhabitants
South Bohemian Region, Tábor District

Historical milestones

1270: King Přemysl Otakar II founds the royal town of Hradiště.

1277: The town of Hradiště and its castle are burned down by the Vítkovec family. The family Sezima of Ústí takes over the site and builds a new castle, Kotnov.

1420: On the site of the ruins of Hradiště, the Hussites began to spontaneously establish a new town named after the biblical mount of Tabor. After burning down nearby Sezimovo Ústí, they also moved its inhabitants here.

1420: After the Battle of Sudoměř, Jan Žižka of Trocnov arrived in the town and became the governor of Tábor. An egalitarian republic was established in the town, administered by four military governors.

1437: King Sigismund of Luxembourg granted Tábor the status of a royal town, which allowed it to build stone walls and begin construction of more impressive stone houses for the townspeople.

1452: The end of the Hussite era in Tábor and the rule of the four governors meant submission to King George of Poděbrady when he besieged the town. The last spiritual leader, Mikuláš Biskupec of Pelhřimov, was subsequently imprisoned.

1492: The Jordan pond was established below the town center as a reservoir of  drinking water for the town.

1532 and 1599: The city was ravaged by devastating fires, which destroyed many houses, including Kotnov Castle.

1547: Tábor was punished for participating in the first anti-Habsburg uprising with the confiscation of its land.

1619: The town defended itself against a siege by the imperial army for a whole year.

1639: During the Thirty Years‘ War, the town was burned and looted by the Swedes.

1741: French-Bavarian siege of the city, which was a military fortress at the time.

1744: Tábor was besieged and conquered by the Prussian army.

1862: The first exclusively Bohemian secondary school in the Czech lands was founded.

1871: The railway was brought to Tábor.

1903: Under the leadership of František Křižík, the first electrified railway in Austria-Hungary was put into operation from Tábor to Bechyně.

1918: On his way back from exile, the first president, T. G. Masaryk, addressed a crowd gathered at the Tábor railway station.

1942: During the Heydrich terror, Tábor became one of the centers of Nazi revenge on the Czech population, with a series of executions of innocent people. At that time, 156 people lost their lives here.

1961: The historic center of the city was declared an urban conservation area.

Interesting facts about the city
Tábor is one of the most architecturally valuable Bohemian royal towns, with a very active local community of enthusiastic people at its core, so there is no shortage of cultural events, often very spontaneous.
Tábor, today the second largest city in South Bohemia, was founded as a chosen settlement for supporters of the Hussite reform movement. In the Middle Ages, it became a model of the ideal city, where social inequalities were eliminated and a classless society was established, governed only by God’s laws. The valuables of the inhabitants were collected in common vats, from which they were then redistributed according to identified needs. However, this system only lasted for six months. The camp immediately became the main center of the Hussite movement in Bohemia. The city was initially surrounded by wooden palisades and earthen ramparts, which were replaced by stronger stone walls only after it was elevated to the status of a royal city. Its name has a biblical prototype in the Israeli mountain, as does the origin of the general name for any camp – tábor, as well as the name of the Jordan pond, which is the name of an important river in the Holy Land. In memory of the Hussite period, the central part of Žižkov Square is decorated with a sculpture of the Tábor governor Jan Žižka of Trocnov by the sculptor Josef Strachovský from 1884. The Hus monument by the sculptor František Bílek from 1928 can be found in Hus Park.
Beneath the historic center, a unique underground network of interconnected cellars and corridors has been preserved, which served as a hiding place for people and their valuables during times of frequent sieges. To this day, it is possible to visit 650 meters of such underground corridors and cellars, called lochy, from the 15th and 16th centuries as part of a tour of the local Hussite museum.
The Tábor water supply system from the Jordan pond, parts of which date back to the end of the 15th century, is absolutely unique. Water was pumped an incredible 32 meters high into the Water Tower in the Tábor fortress and from there it was distributed through wooden pipes to seven city fountains. The Jordan Pond itself covers an area of 51 hectares and is the oldest water reservoir in Central Europe. Excess water overflows into the Jordan Waterfall, which is 18 meters high.
Surprisingly, you will hardly find any baroque buildings in the city center of Tábor, as most of the houses have been preserved in their original gothic and renaissance style. This makes the incredibly ornate baroque Marian pilgrimage church in Klokoty, built between 1701 and 1730, all the more surprising. It is located just outside the city walls on a hill behind the Lužnice River valley, which flows around the historic center of Tábor.
The local neo-renaissance Oskar Nedbal Theater from 1887 is technically unique with its two auditoriums, which are turned from two sides towards the central stage. It was built here during a major renovation of the theater in 1967.
Another attraction is the local chocolate and marzipan museum, which features a chocolate statue of hockey player Jaromír Jágr.
Tábor also has the youngest zoo in the Czech Republic in the Větrovy district, which is the largest in southern Bohemia and focuses on breeding European bison, bears, and parrots.

The biggest tourist magnets
Parts of the complex two-tiered stone fortifications of the town, which were completed by 1440, have been preserved around the historic center of Tábor. Both tiers of the impregnable Hussite fortifications were reinforced with bastions and towers, of which the Žižka and Soukeník bastions are the best preserved. The sophistication of the city’s defense system, which became an example for other cities, is evidenced by the incorporation of three lower polygonal bastions into the inner rampart wall. These allowed for effective flanking fire into the space between the walls. Only one of the city walls has been preserved – the Bechyně Gate at the remains of the Kotnov city castle. The originally gothic structure was rebuilt in the gothic style during the 19th century, while the Prague Gate and New Gate were demolished in the same century.
Practically all that remains of the ancient Kotnov Castle is a cylindrical tower with a gallery, which today serves as a lookout tower. The castle was gradually dismantled and finally rebuilt into a brewery at the very end of the 18th century.
The imposing town hall with its late gothic core from 1440 to 1516, which was romantically rebuilt during the 19th century by architect Josef Niklas, is particularly noteworthy. It is adorned with three tall stepped gables on the central Žižkov Square, and its interior houses the well-equipped Hussite Museum. Inside, there is an equestrian statue of Jan Žižka and the second largest gothic space in Bohemia after Vladislav Hall at Prague Castle, which covers an impressive 250 m^². This hall features an exquisite net vault. The adjacent prismatic tower of the town hall is topped with a unique 24-hour clock face with a single hand.
A prominent sacred building in the city is the late gothic Church of the Transfiguration on Mount of Tabor with the highest tower in South Bohemia, measuring almost 78 meters. It was built at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, but later supplemented with renaissance gables, which are still preserved today and are otherwise rarely found in Czech church architecture. In front of it stands a baroque statue of Pieta with St. Florian and St. Donatus, both from the outstanding sculptural workshop of František Ignác Platzer.
The renaissance and late gothic styles in the city are represented by a number of burgher houses, especially the so-called Kostnický House, which is co-owned by the partner city of Konstanz, and the Lichvic, Škoch and Ctibor houses on Žižkov Square, all dating from the 15th century but later rebuilt in the renaissance style. The Water Tower with arched gables from 1502 and Roland’s Fountain on Žižkov Square from 1568 have also been renovated in the renaissance style.
The only complete baroque building in the castle complex is the Augustinian monastery, which served as a center for the recatholization of the population after the defeat of the second estates uprising. The building dates from 1642-1666 and was designed by Italian architect Antonio de Alfieri. After the monastery was abolished under Emperor Joseph II, the building served as a prison, where the first execution in independent Czechoslovakia took place in 1923. Today, the entire complex serves as the Ambit Gallery and cultural center.
In addition to the Oskar Nedbal Theater, another remarkable neo-renaissance building is the representative Střelnice cultural center from 1894-5, which was built as a community center, primarily for the shooting club.
A beautiful art nouveau monument is Bílek vila Mária from 1901, designed by the famous sculptor František Bílek, who was inspired by Parisian and Brussels art nouveau style. The facades of the villa feature a recurring motif of wasp heads.

Famous natives of Tábor
Oskar Nedbal, composer and conductor (*1874)
Jan Schmid, playwright, director of the Ypsilon Theater (*1936)
Jiří Hrzán, actor (*1939)
Jiří Datel Novotný, actor (*1944)
Zdeněk Rytíř, songwriter (*1944)
Miroslav Kalousek, politician (*1960)
Petra Nesvačilová, actress (*1985)

The famous who stayed in the city
Jan Žižka of Trocnov, Hussite military leader
Prokop Holý, Hussite military leader
Jan Roháč of Dubá, Hussite military leader
August Sedláček, historian