Cham, Germany

Cham
Church in Cham Church in Cham
Coat of arms of Cham Coat of arms
Cham
Location of Cham within Cham district 250px
Coordinates:
Country	Germany
State	Bavaria
Admin. region	Oberpfalz
District	Cham
Government
• Mayor	Karin Bucher (FWG)
Area
• Total	80.67 km2 (31.15 sq mi)
Population (2013-12-31)
• Total	16,433
• Density	200/km2 (530/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	93413
Dialling codes	0 99 71
Vehicle registration	CHA
Website	www.cham.de

Cham (German pronunciation: [ˈkaːm]) is the capital of the district of Cham in the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria in Germany.

Location

Cham lies within the Cham-Further lowland, which is bordered on the south by the Bavarian Forest and on the north by the Oberpfälzer Wald. The city lies on the Regen River, which joins the Danube 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 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" in Switzerland, is actually pronounced with an initial "ch" sound, whereas Bavarian Cham is pronounced with a /k/.

History

Monks 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 around 1000, the so-called Cham Denar. The 12th century saw the town's location shifted to its current place. The Hussite Wars of the 15th century inflicted great hardships on the townspeople. In 1742, the Pandur troops of Franz Freiherr von der Trenck overran and destroyed the city.

Cham's first railway 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 and the Sudetenland swelled Cham's population from 5,860 to over 10,000.

International relations

Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany

Cham, Germany is twinned with:

• Cham, Switzerland
• Klatovy, Czech Republic
• Gainsborough, Great Britain

Notable people

• Anne of Bohemia (1323–1338), a sister of Emperor Charles IV, later Duchess consort of Austria, Styria and Carinthia
• Nicolas Luckner (1722–1794), Marshal of France, to whom the Marseillaise was dedicated
• Karl Stern (1906–1975), German-Canadian neurologist and author of Pillar of Fire (1951)
• Fritz Zängl (1914–1942), a German skier, born in Katzbach
• Christoph Janker (born 1985)- Footballer