Hoyerswerda

Town in the Land (administrative region) of Brandenburg, Germany, 40 km/25 mi south of Cottbus; population (2005 est) 42,600. It is situated in the Sorbian district of Lusatia. The town is dominated by a huge power-generating and lignite-processing complex, built to exploit the extensive opencast mining of brown coal in the area. Glass is also manufactured.

Hoyerswerda was a small town until 1950 when the area's massive lignite deposits were exploited to generate electricity for the East German state. It lies in the Sorbian language area, and in 1912 the Domowina (Sorbian ‘homeland’) was founded here to resist the increasing oppression of Sorbs by Germans.

There is a castle dating from the 13th century, largely remodelled in the Renaissance style. The 15th-century Rathaus (town hall) was also rebuilt to a Renaissance design in 1680.