What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 22 June 2024.

In the early Middle Ages, this area was a settlement called Poříčí (which means ‘riverside’). I’ll try not to give too much commentary on that today, as I’m saving it for a future thread.

It was mainly inhabited by German merchants, who, around 1150, had a church built and called it St Peter’s (same second sentence as in previous post, but a different future thread).

The church was handed over to the Teutonic Knights in 1215, and the district eventually became known as Petrská čtvrť (Peter’s District, or thereabouts. Probably Peterstown or Petersville if this were in an English-speaking country?).

When Petrská čtvrť was incorporated into Prague’s New Town in 1348, it was one of the few areas which already had an established network of streets and buildings; the streets have largely been preserved.

Until the early 20th century, Petrská čtvrť’s economy was dominated by its proximity to the Vltava; mills survived until 1915-7, when the banks of the Vltava were regularised.

The square itself didn’t get its name until 1894, when the surrounding area was rehabilitated.

It’s quite nice these days – not so many people, which is a pleasing feature of this entire section of the New Town (main roads and tunnels aside), and pedestrianised.

It also served as inspiration for the novels of Jaroslav Foglar: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/11/04/prague-1-day-242-ve-stinadlech/.

This association does an excellent job of promoting the district and its heritage, and even publishes a regular newspaper: https://petrskactvrt.cz/news.php. They’re on FB and Insta.

For those keeping count, we have exactly three weeks of Prague 1 posts left, unless a new street has sprung up in the meantime.