Cottbus - Chóśebuz

Sister cities

• Košice
• Grosseto
• Lipetsk
• Gelsenkirchen
• Saarbrücken
• Nuneaton and Bedworth
• Montreuil
• Targovishte
• Nuneaton
• Zielona Góra

History

The settlement was established in the tenth century, when Sorbs erected a castle on a sandy island in the River Spree. It was captured by the March of Lusatia in 965, then it passed to Poland under Bolesław I the Brave in 1002, and back to the March of Lusatia in 1032. The first recorded mention of the town's name was in 1156. In the 13th century German settlers came to the town and thereafter lived side by side with the Sorbs. In the Middle Ages Cottbus was known for wool, and the town's drapery was exported throughout Brandenburg, Bohemia and Saxony. It was also located on an important trade route, called the "Salt Road", which was used to transport salt from Halle to Lusatia and further east to Poland. It was part of the Margraviate of Lusatia and later Lower Lusatia, which was held by the House of Wettin until it became a Bohemian Crown Land in 1367. In 1445 Cottbus was acquired by the Margraviate of Brandenburg from Bohemia. It was an exclave almost completely surrounded by Bohemian Lower Lusatia (with a short border with the Electorate of Saxony to the south-west). In 1514 Jan Rak founded the , a Sorbian gymnasium, in the city. In 1635 Lower Lusatia was ceded by Bohemia to Saxony, thereby making Cottbus an enclave of Saxony. Since the 1690s, French, Walloons and Palatines settled in the city. In 1701 Brandenburg-Prussia became the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1807, following the War of the Fourth Coalition, Cottbus was ceded by Prussia to the Kingdom of Saxony by the Treaty of Tilsit, reuniting it with Lower Lusatia. Cottbus was returned to Prussia by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic wars. Lower Lusatia was also ceded to Prussia and both became part of the Prussian Province of Brandenburg (and ), where they remained until 1947. In the 19th…

Most-observed species

• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,605
• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,325
• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,121
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,088
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,923
• Great Spotted Woodpecker

  Dendrocopos major (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,620
• Eurasian Nuthatch

  Sitta europaea Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,585
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,504

Most recent

• M 3.1 — 2008-08-13
  4 km NE of Kodersdorf, Germany