The History and Chronicle of Krásná Lípa

Krásná Lípa was first documented in 1361 and was apparently the only settlement in the area for a long time. During that time, ancestors of noble birth from Lipá called on around thirty families as colonists from Horní Franky. Not far from there was a castle, Krásný Buk, but it was destroyed in 1339. Some of the castle's entitlements were allegedly transferred to the owners of Stará Rychta, which stood until the year 1731 on at a crossroad, on the spot of today’s Krásnolipské square. The neighboring village of Krásný Buk, first mentioned in 1485, probably was not established until the end of the Hussite war.

At the midpoint of the 16th century, Krásná Lípa was still part of the Tolštejnské domain, but on the 7th of March, 1537, Kryštof of Šlejnice sold it to the brothers Abrahams and Jindřich of Vartenberk, and the new owners connected it to the Kamenický domain. Vchynští of Vchynice and Tetov (the Kinský lineage from 1619), whose members supported trade development, gained the area in 1614. Count Filip Josef Kinský hired the English textile expert John Barnes in 1731, and he established a yarn production here. The same year, on the 3rd of August, Krásná Lípa was promoted by Carl VI to a township and, in 1733, a marketplace was granted to the township. On the 5th of January, 1870, Krásná Lípa became a town. The town reached its highest population in 1919, then the number of citizens started to decline slowly. The forcible expulsion of German inhabitants between 1945 and 1946 led to a considerable decrease in population, bringing the town to about half of its former population. At that time, more than 300 abandoned houses were demolished.