Heřmanice () is a municipality and village in

Liberec District Liberec District () is a district in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. Its capital is the city of Liberec. Administrative division Liberec District is divided into three administrative districts of municipalities with extended competence: ...

in the

Liberec Region Liberec Region () is an administrative unit (Czech language, Czech: ''kraj'') of the Czech Republic, located in the northernmost part of its historical region of Bohemia. It is named after its capital Liberec. The region shares international bor ...

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 300 inhabitants.

Etymology

The original German name of the village was ''Hermannsdorff'', meaning "Herman's village". It was gradually distorted into ''Hermsdorf''. The Czech name was created by translation.

Geography

Heřmanice is located about north of

Liberec Liberec (; ) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 108,000 inhabitants, making it the fifth largest city in the country. It lies on the Lusatian Neisse River, in a basin surrounded by mountains. The city centre is well preserved and is pr ...

, in a salient region of Frýdlant Hook on the border with

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. The northern part of the municipal territory with the built-up area lies in the Frýdlant Hills. The southern part lies in the

Jizera Mountains Jizera Mountains (), or Izera Mountains (; ), are part of the Western Sudetes on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. The range got its name from the Jizera (river), Jizera River, which rises at the southern base of the Smrk (Jizera), ...

and includes the highest point of Heřmanice, the hill Lysý vrch at above sea level. The Oleška Stream flows through the municipality.

History

The first written mention of Heřmanice is from 1381. There is an even older mention in the

Zittau Zittau (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, Upper Lusatian dialect: ''Sitte''; ) is the southeasternmost city in the Germany, German state of Saxony, and belongs to the Görlitz (district), district of Görlitz, Germany's easternmost Districts of Germ ...

annals, but the date of 1375 is only an estimate. Heřmanice was then part of the

Frýdlant Frýdlant (, also known as Frýdlant v Čechách; ) is a town in Liberec District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,400 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Cz ...

estate, owned by the Biberstein family until 1544. The Schwanitz family held the village from 1544 to 1668. In 1678, Heřmanice was again joined to the Frýdlant estate and was owned by the Clam-Gallas family. In 1900, a railway from Frýdlant to Zittau via Heřmanice was built. The railway was in service until 1976. In 1938, the municipality 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

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 the

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 ...

, the German population was expelled and the number of inhabitants dropped. In 1960, Heřmanice merged with the neighbouring municipality of Dětřichov. From 1986 to 1990, it was an administrative part of

. Since 1 September 1990, it has been a separate municipality. The village was hit by floods in summer 2010. The whole infrastructure of the village was destroyed. Many houses were damaged, several houses were demolished. One woman died.

Demographics

Transport

On the Czech-Polish border is the ''Heřmanice /

Bogatynia Bogatynia (; German language, German: ''Reichenau in Sachsen''; ; ) is a town in Zgorzelec County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. As of December 2021, the town had a population of 16,460. Geography The municipal area forms Po ...

'' road border crossing.

Sights

There are several

half-timbered Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

houses in Heřmanice, built in the so-called Upper Lusatian style. A wooden observation tower was built in Heřmanice in 2012. It is high, has the shape of a tube topped by a dome, and 99 steps lead to the top.

Twin towns – sister cities

Heřmanice is twinned with: *

Pieńsk Pieńsk (; ) is a town in Zgorzelec County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district (gmina) called Gmina Pieńsk, and stands on the east bank of the Lusatian Neisse river, which forms t ...

, Poland * Sobota (Lwówek Śląski), Poland

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hermanice Villages in Liberec District