Aš (; ) is a town in Cheb District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. Administrative parts Villages of Dolní Paseky, Doubrava, Horní Paseky, Kopaniny, Mokřiny, Nebesa, Nový Žďár and Vernéřov are administrative parts of Aš. Geography Aš is located about northwest of Cheb, on the border with Germany. With the neighbouring municipalities Hranice, Krásná, Podhradí and Hazlov, it lies in the westernmost area of the Czech Republic known as the Aš Panhandle. This area is a salient surrounded by German territory in the east, north and west. It lies in the historical Egerland region. Aš is situated in the Fichtel Mountains. The highest point of Aš and of the whole Czech part of the Fichtel Mountains is Háj, at . The upper course of the White Elster river shortly after its source flows across the central part of the municipal territory, outside the town proper. History 11th–18th centuries Previously uninhabited hills and swamps, the town of Aš was founded in the early 11th century by German colonists descending from the Bavarian march of the Nordgau in the course of the Ostsiedlung. So far, previous Slavic settlements in the area are not known. The first recorded rulers were the Vogt ministeriales from Weida, Thuringia, who gave the entire Vogtland region its name. In 1281, they officially received the estates as an immediate fief at the hands of King Rudolph I of Germany. Emperor Louis IV elevated them to Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1329. Nevertheless, two years later, they sold Aš land to King John of Bohemia, who since 1322 also held the adjacent Egerland in the south. Together with neighbouring Selb and Elster, Aš was enfeoffed to the Freiherren of Neuberg (Podhradí). When in 1394 Konrad von Neuburg died without a male heir, by virtue of Hedwig von Neuburg's marriage to Konrad von Zedtwitz, Aš passed into the control of the noble House of Zedtwitz. In 1557, the Aš region was incorporated into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown by the Habsburg king Ferdinand I. Like the neighbouring Egerland, it remained Protestant until the Thirty Years' War, as the Counter Reformation did not stretch to the West Bohemian borderlands. In the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the Protestant confession of the citizens was confirmed. In 1774, Empress Maria Theresa officially mediatised Aš as part of the Bohemian crown land within