Plzeň (German and alternate English: Pilsen) is a city in the Czech Republic in western Bohemia, the capital of Plzeň Region. It lies about 90 km by highway southwest of Prague at the confluence of the Radbuza, Mže, Úslava and Úhlava rivers, creating the Berounka.

Plzeň is famous for its Pilsener beer, named Pilsner Urquell and for the Škoda Works, established by Emil Škoda in 1859. The most prominent monuments are the Gothic church of St. Bartholomew, said to date from 1292, whose tower (100 m) is the highest in the Czech Republic, the Renaissance town hall dating from the 16th century, and the third largest synagogue in the world (after Jerusalem and Budapest).

Renaissance City Hall of Pilsen

Plzeň first appears in history in 976, as the scene of a battle in the war between Prince Boleslaus II and the emperor Otto II, and it became a town in 1295, established by Wenceslaus II. During the Hussite Wars it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites; it was three times unsuccessfully besieged by Prokop the Great, and it took part in the league of the Romanist lords against King George of Podebrady. The first Czech printing press was established here in 1468. During the Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 (see Battle of Pilsen) and not recaptured by the Imperialists till 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter-quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648.

At the end of the Second World War, on May 6, 1945, Plzeň (and Western Bohemia) was liberated from the Nazis by General Patton, unlike the rest of Czechoslovakia that was freed by the Red Army.

Famous people

• Composer Bedřich Smetana studied here in the 1840s
• Architect of the economic reforms attached to the Prague Spring, Ota Sik, born
• Poet Miroslav Holub, born
• Singer Karel Gott born
• Inventor František Křižík lived here and introduced his electric arc lamps to the streets of Plzeň
• Josef Skupa (1892-1957), the author of the famous puppets of Spejbl (1919) and Hurvinek (1926)
• Artist Jiří Trnka (1912-1969)
• Petr Čech (born 1982), Czech international football goalkeeper

There is a neighbourhood called Pilsen in Chicago. It was once inhabited by Czechs, but is Mexican today.

External links

• City of Plzeň
• University of West Bohemia