JOACHIMSTHAL (Boh., Jdchimov), a mining town of Bohemia, in the circle of Eger, is favourably situated in a valley on the southern slopes of the Erzgebirge, about 10 miles north of Carlsbad, and 3 miles from the Saxon frontier, at an elevation of 2000 feet above the level of the sea, 50° 23' N. lat., 12° 51' E. long. It is the seat of a, circuit court and board of mines, and has two commercial schools and establishments for teaching lace-making and straw-plaiting. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in mining, and in the manufacture of white and red lead, vermilion, cobalt, smalt, uranium yellow, bismuth, and nickel; also of thread, lace, basket-work, cutlery, paper, and cigars. The town owes its celebrity to the silver, lead, tin, and iron mines in its vicinity. During the 16th century the silver mines reached a very high point of productiveness, but since that period the yield has considerably declined. Population in 1870, 6586....
In place of the present town of Joachimsthal, which dates from the year 1516, there stood formerly the village of Conradsgrün. This was ceded by the kings of Bohemia to the counts of Schlick, from whom it passed by feudal tenure to the knights of Haslava. It is from the silver guldengroschen, first coined in 1518 by order of Gount Schlick, and afterwards known as Joachimsthaler, that the •German term thaler is derived. In 1547, during the Smalkald war, the town was besieged by William Thumshirn, general of John Frederick, elector of Saxony, but the siege was soon raised. In 1579 certain special privileges and additional lands were granted to Joachimsthal by the emperor Rudolph II. The last emigration of Protestants from the neighbourhood to Saxony took place in 1663. Three-fourths of the town was destroyed by fire on the 81st March 1873. The large church of St Joachim, which was also burned, was rebuilt and restored in 1876. . In the neighbourhood are the ruins of the castle of Freudenstein.
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