Floß (German pronunciation: [floːs] ^ⓘ) is a market town in the Upper Palatinate district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab and has a history of more than 1000 years.

The town of Floß is situated on both sides of the Floß river, in a valley approximately 13 kilometers west of the German-Czech border. The market town also extends over the hills that form the north and south banks of the river. In the southeastern part of the town, the Hardtbach river, flows into the Floß. State Road 2395 runs through Floß from Flossenbürg to Neustadt an der Waldnaab.

The neighboring towns and municipalities, clockwise, are: Plößberg, Flossenbürg, Waldthurn, Theisseil, Störnstein, and Püchersreuth.

The civil parish Floß is composed of 35 official named districts:

Within the municipal area, there are the cadastral territories of Bergnetsreuth, Diepoltsreuth, Floß, Gailertsreuth, Gösen (only cadastral part 0), Grafenreuth, Kalmreuth, Schlattein, and Schönbrunn.

In the 10th to 15th centuries we see the forms Flozzun, Flossen, Flozze, Floss, Flozze, Flozzam, Flozz Floß, Vlozze and Flôt. There are various views on the origin of the name Floß for both the town of Floß and the Floß river:

From around 500 BC to the turn of the era, the Upper Palatinate was inhabited by Celts. Carl Siegert and Wilhelm Brenner-Schäffer consider the Celtic word flathasach = bright, beautiful as the origins of the name.

From the turn of the era until around 600 AD, Germanic tribes settled in the Upper Palatinate. From the mid-1st century BC, Elbe Germanic tribes moved from north to south, displacing the Celts. Around 500, the Upper Palatinate belonged to the Thuringian Empire. Several authors (Wolf-Armin von Reitzenstein, Adolf Wolfgang Schuster, Leonhard Bär, Albrecht Greule) assume that the name Floß for the town and the river was given by Germanic settlers. Bär derives Floß from fließen, Fluss, Flözsand, flözen ab (to flow, river, sand deposit, to mine). Reitzenstein assumes an origin from the Germanic word flutō = the flowing.