Stod is a town in the Plzeň Region

Plzen Region

Plzeň Region is an administrative unit in the western part of Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It is named after its capital Plzeň .- Communes :...

 of the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. It lies some south-west from the region capital of Plzeň upon the Radbuza

Radbuza

The Radbuza is a 112 km long river in the Czech Republic, the right tributary of the Mže. Its source is situated at the foot of Lysá mountain near the village of Závist, near Domažlice...

 River.

Stod is also the seat of the Municipality with Extended Competence.

History

The first written mention of Staab / Stod dates from 1235, when Wenceslaus I of Bohemia left the village to the monastery Chotěšov (Chotieschau in German). In 1315 John of Bohemia raised the villages status to that of a market town (Marktflecken). By the period of Charles IV

Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....

 in 1363, the town acquired more privileges, such as a judiciary, the right to use a city seal, and to keep the city's books. In 1544 the town was granted the privilege of establishing a malt-house and a brewery. By 1547 there was a post office and in 1550 granted Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558 and king of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526 until his death. Before his accession, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs in the name of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.The key events during his reign were the contest...

 allowed the town to stage an annual fair.

The town was set back by the turmoil of the Thirty Years War. By 1654 the settlement was almost deserted, with only about 230 residents. Consequently tracts of land were distributed to German families from Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 to repopulate the region.

By 1850 Staab / Stod had grown to approximately 1500 residents (almost entirely German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 speaking) and the town received civic rights (Stadtrechte). The town was the seat of a local District Court. At this time some local German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 peasants could not afford to buy land so in 1863 a small group, led by a former Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n army officer named Captain Martin Krippner, left to settle Puhoi

Puhoi

Puhoi is a settlement located approximately 50 km north of Auckland, New Zealand. Puhoi is probably a Maori word which may be translated as "Slow water"....

 in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. (This has given Puhoi

Puhoi

Puhoi is a settlement located approximately 50 km north of Auckland, New Zealand. Puhoi is probably a Maori word which may be translated as "Slow water"....

 the popular appellation of the "Bohemian Settlement".)

In 1938 the town was part of the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

 annxed by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 the native German population was harassed, stripped of their property and brutally expelled following the notorious Beneš decrees

Beneš decrees

Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...

.

Between 1949 and 1960 there were various local government reforms following the massive population changes. The town now belongs to the district Stod Lelov (Lellowa).