Ústí nad Orlicí

Ústí nad Orlicí (Wildenschwert) is a town in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 14,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.

Administrative parts
The town parts of Hylváty, Kerhartice and Knapovec and the villages of Černovír, Dolní Houžovec, Horní Houžovec and Oldřichovice are administrative parts of Ústí nad Orlicí.

Etymology
The name Ústí literally means "mouth (of the river)". It refers to its location at the confluence of rivers. The German name Wildenschwert was created by a distortion of the original German name Wilhelmswerd, which referred to one of colonizers on the area, Wilhelm von Dürnholz, and meant "Wilhelm's promontory".

Geography
Ústí nad Orlicí is located about 44 km east of Pardubice. It lies in the Svitavy Uplands. The highest point is the Strážný hill at 584 m above sea level. The town is situated at the confluence of the Tichá Orlice and Třebovka rivers.

History
Ústí nad Orlicí was founded in the second half of the 13th century, during the reign of King Ottokar II of Bohemia. Its predecessor was a Slavic settlement called Oustí. The first written mention of the town is from 1285, when King Wenceslaus II gifted it to Záviš of Falkenstein.

In 1292, after Zavis' death, Wenceslaus II gifted the settlement to the Cistercian monks at Königsaal. They passed the town to the Litomyšl bishopric in 1358. During the 15th and 16th centuries, it was owned by various noble families, including the Kostkas of Postupice or the Pernštejn family.

The town was damaged by a large fire in 1495. After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, Ústí was acquired by the Liechtenstein family. There were guilds of weavers established here in the 16th century. The town was slow to recover from the lootings of the Thirty Years' War, then was destroyed by fire in 1705.

It gained municipal status in 1795. When Ústí was connected to the railway network by the Olomouc–Prague line in 1845, the textile business boomed. It gained the tagline of The Manchester of Eastern Bohemia, and became an important textile centre. It was an important railway junction and from 1850 became a regional centre.

Economy
The largest industrial employer based in the town is Rieter CZ, a manufacturer of textile machinery with more than 500 employees.

Transport
The I/14 road (the section from Rychnov nad Kněžnou to Česká Třebová) passes through the town.

Ústí nad Orlicí is located on the Prague–Košice international railway line. The town is also served by the Prague–Luhačovice interregional line and by a regional line heading from Česká Třebová to Litomyšl.

Sights
Mírové Square is a regular rectangular square with a floor plan preserved since the founding of the town. The square is surrounded by valuable arcaded houses. In the middle of the square is Marian column from 1737. The Baroque town hall was built in 1721–1723 and replaced the old town hall destroyed by fire. A school was built next to it in 1793. In 1850, the two buildings were structurally connected.

The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is a late Baroque church, built in 1770–1776. The adjoining deanery building was built in 1742–1748.

The Church of the Visitation of Our Lady in Horní Houžovec was built around 1800. It is a wooden rural church with an octagonal nave, valued as an example of vernacular architecture in the region.

The Church of Saints Peter and Paul is located in Knapovec. It was built in the late Empire style in 1832–1834. The adjoining deanery building was built in 1742–1748.

Notable people

 * František Martin Pecháček (1763–1816), composer
 * Leopold Jansa (1795–1875), violinist and composer
 * Fritz Löhner-Beda (1883–1942), Jewish author
 * Jaroslav Kocian (1883–1950), violinist
 * Oldřich Marek (1911–1986), entomologist
 * Emila Medková (1928–1985), photographer
 * Martin Netolický (1956–1999), politician
 * Roman Dostál (born 1970), biathlete
 * Zdeňka Žádníková-Volencová (born 1974), actress
 * Martin Netolický (born 1982), politician
 * Michal Šlesingr (born 1983), biathlete
 * Ondřej Moravec (born 1984), biathlete
 * Jaroslav Kulhavý (born 1985), mountain biker, Olympic winner
 * Kamil Vacek (born 1987), footballer

Twin towns – sister cities
Ústí nad Orlicí is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Amberg, Germany
 * 🇵🇱 Bystrzyca Kłodzka, Poland
 * 🇮🇹 Massa Martana, Italy
 * 🇩🇪 Neukölln (Berlin), Germany
 * 🇸🇰 Poprad, Slovakia