Beroun

Beroun stands where the Berounka and Litavka meet, on a natural route between Prague and Plzeň. An older settlement called Na Brodě, 'by the ford', was recorded in 1088. King Ottokar II chose a site for a new settlement, recorded as Verona in 1265; Wenceslaus II enlarged it in 1295 and made it a royal town in 1303. A Dominican convent was established alongside the new town.

In 1421 Hussite forces under Jan Žižka stormed Beroun and destroyed the convent. The town was devastated again after the Battle of Lipany, but later prospered under King Vladislaus II. During the Thirty Years' War imperial, Saxon and Swedish armies each plundered it in turn. French and Bavarian troops repeated the damage during the First Silesian War, and Beroun became a garrison town in the eighteenth century.