It lies on the Ohre, which is spanned here by a suspension bridge, 210 ft. long, which is the oldest of its kind in Bohemia, having been constructed in 1826. It possesses several ancient churches, of which one is said to date from 1206, and a town hall built in 1559. Zatec is the centre of the extensive hop trade with over 700 years long tradition of growing and producing of this plant.
A coat-of-arms was given to the inhabitants by Vladislav II for their courage during the storming of Milan, and the place is mentioned as a royal town under Ottokar II. From the outbreak of the Hussite Wars to the Thirty Years' War Zatec was Hussite or Protestant, but after the Battle of White Mountain (1620) the greater part of the Czech inhabitants left the town, which became German and Roman Catholic.