Stochov (ˈstoxof; ) is a town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in the Central Bohemian Region

Central Bohemian Region

Central Bohemian Region is an administrative unit of the Czech Republic, located in the central part of its historical region of Bohemia. Its administrative center is placed in the Czech capital Prague , which lies in the center of the region...

, 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 is located 11 km west of Kladno

Kladno

Kladno is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It is located 25 km northwest of Prague. Kladno is the largest city of the region and holds a population together with its adjacent suburban areas of more than 110,000 people...

 and has a population of 5,397 (2005).

Stochov is mentioned for the first time in 1316. It used to be a small village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 until the second half of 20th century, when a large housing estate

Housing estate

A housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...

 was built west of Stochov to accommodate the increasing number of people working in coal mines

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 in the Kladno area in the 1950s and 1960s. Subsequently, Stochov gained town status in 1967.

According to legend, Saint Wenceslas

Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia

Wenceslaus I , or Wenceslas I, was the duke of Bohemia from 921 until his assassination in 935, purportedly in a plot by his own brother, Boleslav the Cruel....

 was born in Stochov and his grandmother Saint Ludmila

Saint Ludmila

Saint Ludmila is a Czech saint and martyr venerated by the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics. She was born in Mělník as daughter of a Slavic prince Slavibor...

 then planted an oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

tree to commemorate this event. The aged and half withered oak tree, estimated to be about 1 000 years old and called Saint Wenceslas' Oak (Svatováclavský dub), is the main sight of the town.