Kocs

Infobox Settlement
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = HUN
timezone=CET
utc_offset=+1
timezone_DST=CEST
utc_offset_DST=+2

|official_name=Kocs


subdivision_type1=County
subdivision_name1=Komárom-Esztergom
area_total_km2=58.32
population_total=2716
population_as_of=2004
population_density_km2=46.57
postal_code_type=Postal code
postal_code=2898
area_code=34
pushpin_

pushpin_label_position =
pushpin_map_caption =Location of Kocs
pushpin_mapsize =
latd=47.60668
longd=18.21536

Kocs (pronounced IPA| [koʧ] ) is a village in Komárom-Esztergom county, Hungary. It lies south of Komárom and convert|65|km|mi|0|abbr=on west of Budapest.

History

Kocs is best known internationally as giving rise to the English word "coach" and its equivalents in nearly all European languages, for example: Czech "koč", German "kutsche", Dutch "koets", Spanish, Portuguese, and French "coche".

During the reign of King Matthias Corvinus in the 15th century, the wheelwrights of Kocs began to build a horse-drawn vehicle with steel-spring suspension. This "cart of Kocs" as the Hungarians called it ("kocsi szekér") soon became popular all over Europe. The spread of the "kocsi szekér" has been linked by some theories personally to the king of Hungary Ferdinand III, the younger brother of Charles V who became the king of Spain, Emperor of Germany, and lord of the Burgundian Netherlands, in the 16th century, and who promoted the comfortable, spring-suspended wagons among the wealthy European nobility.Fact|date=October 2007 A 16th century German depiction of a "kocsi" without springs puts this theory in doubt, however, and it is uncertain whether the springs or some other feature were responsible for the spread of the word throughout Europe."coach" The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 14 Oct. 2007] Thurn and Taxis, the imperial post service, employed the first horse-drawn mail coaches in Europe since Roman times in 1650, - as they started in the town of Kocs the use of these mail coaches gave rise to the term "coach". [cite book|author= Mackay, James |title=The Guinness Book of Stamps|publisher=Guinness Publishing LTD, Enfield, UK|year=1988|page=page 26|ISNB=]

The coat of arms of the town, in addition to displaying a ram and a striped pattern, also depicts an early model cart or wagon that refers to the wheelwrights' successful industry.

Gallery

References

External links

* [http://www.terkepcentrum.hu/index.asp?go=map&tid=2510 Street map (Hungarian)]