The silver Joachimsthaler coins minted here since the 16th century gave their name to the Thaler and the dollar.

[3] Jáchymov is located about 15 kilometres (9 mi) north of Karlovy Vary, on the border with Germany.

The silver caused the population to grow rapidly, and made the Counts of Schlick, whose possessions included the town, one of the richest families in Bohemia.

They became known in German as Thaler and as tolar in Czech, which via the Dutch daalder or daler is the etymological origin of the currency name "dollar".

[5][6] The fame of Jáchymov for its ore mining and smelting works attracted the scientific attention of the doctor Georg Bauer (better known by the Latin form of his name, Georgius Agricola) in the late 1527–1531, who based his pioneering metallurgical studies on his observations made here.

When in 1621 the Counter-Reformation and re-Catholicisation took effect in the town, many Lutheran citizens and people from the mountains migrated to nearby Saxon White Serbia.

[8] Following the Silesian Wars until 1918, the town was part of Austria-Hungary, head of the district with the same name, one of the 94 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Bohemia.

[11] At the end of the 19th century, Maria Skłodowska-Curie discovered in a uraninite spoil dump from Jáchymov, ore containing the element radium, for which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Ventilation and watering measures were introduced, miners were given higher pay and longer vacations, but death rates remained high.

[13] Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Joachimstal was annexed by Nazi Germany and administered as part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland.

[14] In times of Nazi occupation and Communism large prison camps were established in the town and around it.

Opponents of the new regime (Stalinism) were forced to mine uranium ore under very harsh conditions: the average life expectancy in Jáchymov at this period was 42 years.

The radioactive thermal springs which arise in the Svornost mine are used under the supervision of doctors for the treatment of patients with nervous and rheumatic disorders.

[17][18] The facility offers treatments for a range of medical conditions, based on the controversial theory of radiation hormesis.

The treatments offered cover a range of neurological disorders and skin diseases, as well as various musculoskeletal conditions such as osteoarthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

[22] The historic centre of the town from the 16th century is well preserved and protected by law as an urban monument zone.

[23] in the basement of the town hall there is a unique collection of the Latin school library from the early 16th century.

It was one of the most modern hotels of its time, whose guests included Richard Strauss, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Fuad I.

[17] The Monument to Maria Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie was created by sculptor Karel Lidický in 1966.