West Bohemia District

an administrative unit in Czechoslovakia, in the Czech Socialist Republic. Area, 10,900 sq km. Population, 863,300 (1970). Administrative center, Plzen. In the west are the wooded ranges of the Sumava and of the Bohemian Forest; to the northwest are the Bohemian Ore Mountains. In the rest of the territory, low mountains alternate with fertile hollows (Plzeň, Cheb).

The West Bohemia District is an industrial and agrarian region (5.9 percent of the industrial and 6.5 percent of the agricultural production of the country). The Sokolov coal field (an output of 17.4 million tons of brown coal and 600,000 tons of hard coal in 1967) and large thermoelectric plants are located here. There are facilities for machine construction (the V. I. Lenin Machine Construction Works in Plzeň—the former Skoda Works—is the largest in the country), as well as facilities for the production of chemicals, ceramics (the region of Karlovy Vary) and textiles and for woodworking and food processing (especially the brewery in Plzeň). The industrial enterprises are concentrated primarily in Plzeň and in the Ohže River valley.

In agriculture, specialization in the cultivation of grain and potatoes is combined with the livestock breeding for milk and meat. The main agricultural crops are rye, oats, potatoes, flax, fodder grass, and, in the hollows, wheat and sugar beets. Timber is cut in the mountains.

The well-known spas are Karlovy Vary, Márianské Lázně, Františkovy Lázně, and Jáchymov.