Plzeň is a city in western
BohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the Czech Republic...
in the
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
. It is the capital of the
Plzeň RegionPlzeň Region is an administrative unit in the western part of Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It is named after its capital Plzeň .- Communes :...
and the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic. It is located about 90 km west of
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
at the
confluenceConfluence may refer to:* Confluence , the point where two or more bodies of water meet and merge* Confluence , the streamline air flow convergence of a fluid air parcel...
of four rivers (
RadbuzaThe Radbuza is a 112 km long river in the Czech Republic, the right tributary of the Mže. Its source is situated at the foot of Lysá mountain near the village of Závist, near Domažlice...
,
MžeThe Mže is a 107 km long river in the Czech Republic. Its source is situated in the Griesbach Forest , Germany, near the village of Asch, in the municipality of Mähring, Tirschenreuth district. It forms the state boundary on the short distance of 3 kilometers and then finally enters the Czech...
,
ÚhlavaThe Úhlava is a long river in the Czech Republic, right tributary of the Radbuza. Its source is situated at the slope of Pancíř mountain in the Šumava mountains, Klatovy District at an elevation of . It passes villages and towns Nýrsko, Janovice, Bezděkov, Klatovy, Švihov, Lužany, and Přeštice...
, and
ÚslavaÚslava is a river in the Czech Republic. It originates as Bradlava near the village of Číhaň. It runs through the following municipalities: Plánice , Žinkovy, Nepomuk, Blovice, Šťáhlavy, Starý Plzenec, Plzeň....
) which form the
BerounkaThe Berounka is a river in the Czech Republic. It carries the name Mže from its source in Germany, next to the Czech border, until its confluence with the Radbuza in Pilsen...
River.
Plzeň is also the seat of the Municipality with Extended Competence and Municipality with Commissioned Local Authority. The city is known worldwide for
PilsenerA pilsener is a type of pale lager beer. It takes its name from being developed in the 19th century in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia .-Origin:...
beer.
History
Plzeň was first mentioned as a castle in 976, as the scene of a battle between Duke Boleslaus II of Bohemia and
EmperorThe Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a Middle Ages ruler, who as German King had in addition received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope of the Holy Roman Church, and after the 16th century, the elected monarch governing the Holy Roman Empire, a Central...
Otto IIOtto II , called the Red, was the third ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty, the son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.-Education, first years of reign:...
. It became a town in 1295 when King Wenceslaus II granted Plzeň its civic charter as a special "Royal City" (
Königsstadt) and established a new town site, located some 10 km away from the original settlement, which is the current town of
Starý PlzenecStarý Plzenec is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It lies some to the southeast from the region capital of Plzeň on the Úslava River....
. It quickly became an important town on trade routes leading to
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
and
RegensburgRegensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
; in the 14th century, it was the third-largest town in Bohemia after
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
and
Kutná HoraKutná Hora is a city in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic in the Central Bohemian Region.-History:The town began in 1142 with the settlement of the first Cistercian Monastery in Bohemia, Kloster Sedlitz, brought from the reichsunmittelbar Cistercian Imperial Waldsassen Abbey...
. During the
Hussite WarsThe Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars involved the military actions against and amongst the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the period 1420 to circa 1434. The Hussite Wars were arguably the first European war in which hand-held gunpowder weapons such as hand cannons made a decisive...
, it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites:
Prokop the GreatProkop or Prokop the Great was one of the most prominent Hussite generals of the Hussite Wars...
unsuccessfully besieged it three times, and it joined the league of Romanist nobles against King
George of PodebradyGeorge of Kunštát and Poděbrady , also known as Poděbrad or Podiebrad , was King of Bohemia...
. In 1468, the town acquired a
printing pressA printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium , thereby transferring an image. The mechanical systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw-presses used to press...
; the
Troyan Chronicle, the first book published in Bohemia, was printed on it.
Emperor
Rudolf IIRudolf II , Holy Roman Emperor as Rudolf II , King of Hungary as Rudolf , King of Bohemia as Rudolf II and Archduke of Austria as Rudolf V...
made Plzeň his seat from 1599-1600. During the
Thirty Years' WarThe Thirty Years' War was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. The war was fought primarily in Germany and at various points involved most of the countries of Europe...
the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 after the
Siege of PlzeňThe Siege of Pilsen or Battle of Pilsen was a siege of the fortified city of Pilsen in Bohemia carried out by the forces of the Bohemian Protestants led by Ernst von Mansfeld. It was the first major battle of the Thirty Years' War...
and it was not recaptured by the Imperial troops until 1621.
Wallenstein,a Bohemian soldier and politician, gave his services during the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II...
made it his winter-quarters in 1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the
SwedesSweden was, between 1611 and 1718, one of the great powers of Europe. In modern historiography this period is known as the Swedish Empire, or stormaktstiden .-Sweden's emergence into a great power:...
in 1637 and 1648. The town and region have been staunchly Roman Catholic despite the
Hussite WarsThe Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars involved the military actions against and amongst the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the period 1420 to circa 1434. The Hussite Wars were arguably the first European war in which hand-held gunpowder weapons such as hand cannons made a decisive...
.
At the end of the 17th century, the architecture of Plzeň began to be influenced by the
BaroqueBaroque architecture, starting in the early 17th century in Italy, took the humanist Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural fashion, expressing the triumph of absolutist church and state. New architectural concerns for color, light and...
style. The historic city center has been under
historic preservationHistoric preservation or heritage conservation is a professional endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historic significance...
since 1989.
In the second half of the 19th Century Pilsen, already an important trade centre for
BohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the Czech Republic...
, near the
BavarianBavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest state of Germany by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
/
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
border, began to rapidly industrialise. In 1869
Emil ŠkodaEmil Ritter von Škoda was a Czech engineer and industrialist.-Biography:...
started up the
Škoda WorksŠkoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states...
: this became the most important and influential engineering company in the country and a crucial supplier of arms to the
Austro-Hungarian ArmyThe Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy . It was composed of the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .Most of Hungarian cavalry, infantry and artillery troops...
. By 1917 the
Škoda WorksŠkoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states...
employed over 30,000 workers. The second largest employer in this period was, after 1898, the National Railways train workshop with about 2,000 employees : this was the largest rail repair shop in all
Austria-HungaryAustria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, or Dual State, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe...
. Between 1861 and 1877, the Pilsen railway junction has been completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two improtant effects : the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and the urban poor. Before 1860 the town was mostly
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
-speaking; after 1918 it was mostly
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
speaking. However much of the countryside to the west, north and south of the town continued to speak a local
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
dialect.
Following Czechoslovak independence from
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
in 1918 the
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
-speaking minority in the region were unhappy with their change of status and unwisely allied themselves to the Nazi cause after 1933. In 1938 Pilsen became literally a fronteir town, breifly, after the creation of the
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945 the
Škoda WorksŠkoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states...
in Pilsen was forced to work for the benefit of the
ReichReich is a German loanword cognate with the English reign, but used most often to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is also cognate with the Latin word and the Scandinavian rike/rige, , , ; as found in bishopric...
armaments and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, was noted.
The German population was driven out of the city and region after 1945 following the notorious
Beneš decreesThe Beneš decrees is a current popular term for a series of laws enacted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile during World War II in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament...
.
On May 6, 1945, at the very end of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Plzeň was liberated from
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
by the 16th Armored Division of General
Patton'sGeorge Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer most famous for his leadership commanding corps and armies as a general in World War II...
3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western Bohemia. The rest of
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
was liberated from German control by the
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
. Elements of Third Army remained in Plzen until late November 1945 assisting the Czechs with re-building from the war. After seizing power in 1948, the Communists undertook a systematic campaign to suppress all acknowledgement of the U.S. Army's role in liberating the city and Western Bohemia. This effort continued until 1989 when the Communists were removed from power. Since 1990, the city of Plzen has organized annual Liberation Festival taking place in May, which has already become a local tradition, and has been attended by many American and Allied veterans.
After the
Communist takeover of February 1948The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades of dictatorship...
, the totalitarian, Soviet-oriented Czechoslovak government launched a currency reform in 1953. This decision caused a wave of discontent throughout the society, while the events in Plzeň were more intense. On 1 June 1953 over 20,000 people, mainly workers of the
Škoda WorksŠkoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states...
began demonstrating against the communist regime. Demonstrators forced their way into the town hall and threw communist symbols, furniture and other objects out the windows. From the afternoon, the demonstration was violently suppressed by the communist officials.
Education and economy
Plzeň is a centre of academic, business, and cultural life for the western part of the Czech Republic. The
University of West BohemiaThe University of West Bohemia is a university located in Pilsen, Czech Republic. It was founded in 1991 and is made up of seven faculties.-Organization:The faculties are the basic units of the university which implement their own academic programmes...
in Plzeň is well known for its School of Law, School of Mechanical Engineering and School of Applied Science in particular.
Since the second half of the 1990s the city has experienced high growth in foreign investments. In 2007, Israeli mall developer Plaza Centers opened the Pilsen Plaza, a 20,000 square meters shopping mall and entertainment center featuring a multiplex cinema from
Cinema City Czech RepublicCinema City is a brand of multiplex cinemas in eastern and central Europe, run by the Israeli company Cinema City International . In Europe it has cinemas in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic...
.
Plzeň produces approximately two-thirds of the Plzeň Region GDP, even though it contains only 29.8% of its population.
http://www.kr-plzensky.cz/article.asp?sec=245 Based on these figures, the city of Plzeň has a total GDP of approximately $7.2 billion, and a per-capita GDP of $44,000. While part of this is explained by commuters (people who work in the city, but live elsewhere) it is one of the most prosperous cities in the Czech Republic.
The
ŠkodaŠkoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states...
company, established in Plzeň in 1859, has been an important part of the Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Czech engineering. The company's production had been directed to the needs of the
Eastern BlocThe terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960...
, and after the
Velvet RevolutionThe Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government. It is seen as one of the most important of the Revolutions of 1989.On November 17, 1989, a Friday, riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration...
, it consequently ran into selling problems and debts. After huge restructuring process it has just two principal subsidiaries: Škoda Transportation (locomotives, tube-trains or trams, since sold to
PortlandPortland is a city located in the Northwestern United States, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the state of Oregon. As of July 2008, it has an estimated population of 575,930, making it the 29th most populous in the United States. It has been referred to as the most...
,
TacomaTacoma is a mid-sized urban port city in and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park...
,
SeattleSeattle is located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Situated in the western part of Washington State on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about south of the Canada – United States border, it is named after Chief Sealth, of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes...
and
SardiniaSardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . The area of Sardinia is . The nearest land masses to the island are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Spanish Balearic Islands...
) and Škoda Power (turbines).
Many foreign companies now own manufacturing bases in Plzeň including Daikin and
PanasonicPanasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation Under this brand the company sells plasma and LCD display panels, DVD recorders and players, Blu-ray Disc players, camcorders, telephones, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, shavers,...
. There has been much discussion of redeveloping those large areas of the Škoda plant which the company no longer uses.
Plzeň also has the biggest brewery (
Pilsner UrquellPilsner Urquell is a bottom-fermented beer produced since 1842 in Pilsen, Bohemia...
) and the biggest distillery (
StockFernet Stock is a herbal bitters made in Plzeň-Božkov, Czech Republic and in Trieste, Italy. It is flavoured with approximately 14 herbs, imported from the Mediterranean and the Alps...
) in the Czech Republic. The former has given a name to an entire
beer styleBeer style is a term used to differentiate and categorize beers by various factors such as colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin....
(specifically, a
pale lagerPale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing...
), the
PilsenerA pilsener is a type of pale lager beer. It takes its name from being developed in the 19th century in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia .-Origin:...
, arguably the world's most popular style.
Tourism
The most prominent sights of Plzeň are the
GothicGothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
St. Bartholomew's CathedralThe Cathedral of Saint Bartholomew dominates the city center of Pilsen in the Czech Republic.The construction of the Gothic style building, located on the main square, started in 1295 and was finished by the beginning of 16th century.The building is 58m long, 30m wide and the spires are 25m high...
, founded in the late 13th century, the tower of which (102.26 m / 335 ft) is the highest in the Czech Republic, the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
Town Hall, and the
Moorish RevivalMoorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Romanticist fascination with all things oriental...
Great Synagogue in Pilsen, the second largest synagogue in Europe, after the
Dohány Street Synagogue, also known as Dohány Street Synagogue or Tabakgasse Synagogue, is located in Erzsébetváros, the 7th district of Budapest. It is the largest synagogue in Eurasia and the second largest in the world, after the Temple Emanu-El...
in
BudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it serves as the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation center and is considered an important hub in Central Europe. In 2009, Budapest had 1,712,210 inhabitants, down from a mid-1980s...
. There is also a 20 km historic underground tunnel/cellar network, among the longest in Central Europe. Part of this network is open to the public for tours of approximately 750 metres in length and up to a depth of 12 metres.
Plzeň is also well-known for the
Pilsner UrquellPilsner Urquell is a bottom-fermented beer produced since 1842 in Pilsen, Bohemia...
(since 1842) and
GambrinusGambrinus is a beer brewed in the Czech Republic at the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery. It is one of the most popular beers in the Czech Republic. The beer is named after Gambrinus, a legendary king of Flanders known for his mythical brewing abilities...
(since 1869)
breweriesA brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made in the home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
, currently owned by
South African BreweriesThe South African Breweries , then called Castle Breweries, was founded in 1895 specifically to serve a new market of miners and prospectors in and around Johannesburg. Two years later, it became the first industrial company to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange...
. A popular tourist attraction is the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery tour where visitors can discover the history of beer. The
pilsenerA pilsener is a type of pale lager beer. It takes its name from being developed in the 19th century in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia .-Origin:...
style of beer was developed in Plzeň in the 19th century.
Dioceses
Since 31 May 1993 Pilsen has been the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pilsen. The first and incumbent
BishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
is Frantisek Radkovský. The diocese covers almost the entire territory of Pilsen region with a total of 818,700 inhabitants. The Diocese office is in St. Bartholomew's Cathedral on the Republic Square in Pilsen. The diocese is divided into 10 vicariates with a total of 72 parishes.
Transport
The Plzeň metropolitan area is largely served by a network of trams and buses operated by the
PMDP. Like other continental European cities, tickets bought from vending machines or small shops are valid for any transportation ran by the city of Plzeň. For residents of the city, a Plzeň Card can be purchased and through a system of "topping up" be used on any public transport with no limitations, as long as it is paid up and valid.
Plzeň is important center of Czech railway transport, crossing of 5 main railway lines:
- line Nr. 170: Praha - Beroun
Beroun is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It is located 30 km southwest of Prague and has a population of 18,206 .Despite its small size, it is an administrative center akin to a "county seat"...
- Plzeň - ChebCheb is a city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic, with about 33,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the river Ohře , at the foot of one of the spurs of the Smrčiny and near the border with Germany...
- line Nr. 180: Plzeň - Domažlice
Domažlice is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic.Domažlice is also a Municipality with Extended Competence and a Municipality with Commissioned Local Authority within the same borders.-History:...
- Furth im WaldFurth im Wald is a municipality in the district of Cham, in Bavaria, Germany, near the Czech border. It is situated in the Bavarian Forest, 16 km northeast of Cham, and 17 km southwest of Domažlice....
(GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
)
- line Nr. 183: Plzeň - Klatovy
Klatovy is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic.Klatovy is also the seat of the Municipality with Extended Competence and Municipality with Commissioned Local Authority.- History :...
- Železná RudaŽelezná Ruda , , is a town in the Pilsen Region of the Czech Republic. It is located in the Šumava Mountains, close to the border with Bavaria and the German town Bayerisch Eisenstein. It has been one of the important sports and touristic centres of the Šumava Mountains...
- line Nr. 160: Plzeň - Žatec
Žatec is an old town in the Czech Republic, in Louny District, Ústí nad Labem Region. It has a population of 19,813 .The earliest historical reference to Sacz is in the Latin chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg of 1004. During the 11th century it belonged to the Vršovci - a powerful Czech...
- line Nr. 190: Plzeň - České Budějovice
České Budějovice is a city in the Czech Republic. It is the largest city in the South Bohemian Region and is the political and commercial capital of the region and centre of the Roman Catholic Diocese of České Budějovice and of the University of South Bohemia...
Sport
- FC Viktoria Plzeň
FC Viktoria Plzeň is a Czech professional football club based in Plzeň. It currently plays the highest level of football in the country.-Historical names:* 1911 - SK Viktoria Plzeň * 1949 - Sokol Škoda Plzeň...
and HC Lasselsberger PlzeňHC Plzeň is an ice hockey team in the Czech Extraliga. Their home arena is ČEZ Aréna in Plzeň.-Players:*See :Category:HC Plzeň players for a list of HC Plzeň players past and present....
Notable people
- Petr Čech
Petr Čech , is a Czech international football goalkeeper who is currently contracted to English Premier League football club Chelsea, for whom he has played since July 2004. Petr Čech has previously played for Viktoria Plzeň, Chmel Blšany, Sparta Prague, and Rennes...
(born 1982), football goalkeeper
- Karel Černý
Karel Černý is a Czech art director and production designer. He won an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Amadeus.-External links:...
(born 1922), art director
- Kateřina Emmons
Kateřina Emmons is a female Czech sport shooter who competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics, where she won a bronze medal, and the 2008 Summer Olympics, where she won her first gold medal in the women's 10 metre air rifle competition, and the very first gold medal of that particular games.On her way...
(born 1983) Olympic sports shooter
- Josef Finger (1841-1925), physicist and mathematician (:de:Josef Finger)
- Gertrud Fussenegger (born 1912), writer (:de:Gertrud Fussenegger)
- Karel Gott
Karel Gott is a Czech singer, as well as an amateur painter. Gott, sometimes nicknamed The Golden Voice of Prague, has been voted the best male singer i.e...
(born 1939), singer
- Peter Grünberg
Peter Andreas Grünberg is a German physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Albert Fert of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives.-Biography:...
(born 1939), German physicist and 2007 Nobel prize winner
- Miroslav Holub
Miroslav Holub was a Czech poet and immunologist.Miroslav Holub's work was heavily influenced by his experiences as an Immunologist, writing many poems utilising his scientific knowledge to poetic effect. His work is almost always unrhymed, so lends itself easily to translation...
(1923-1998), poet
- Rudolf Karel
Rudolf Karel was a distinguished Czech composer.-Brief Biography:Rudolf Karel was son of a poor railway employee. He studied composition from 1899 to 1904 with Antonín Dvořák and organ with Josef Klička in Prague...
(1880-1945), composer
- František Křižík
František Křižík was a Czech inventor, electrical engineer and entrepreneur. The main belt asteroid 5719 Křižík was named in his honor....
(1847-1941), inventor
- Emil Lederer
Emil Lederer was a Bohemian-born German economist and sociologist.- Biography :Lederer was born in 1882 to a Jewish merchant family. He studied law and national economy at Vienna University...
(1882-1939), economist and sociologist
- Luboš Motl
Luboš Motl is a Czech theoretical physicist who worked on string theory and conceptual problems of quantum gravity until 2006. The following year he left academia, and currently lives in Plzeň, Czech Republic, keeping a blog commenting on primarily physics, but also global warming, and politics....
(born 1973), physicist
- Ota Šik
Ota Šik was a Czech economist and politician. He was the man behind the New Economic Model and was one of the key figures in the Prague Spring.-Early years:...
(1919-2004), economist
- Josef Skupa
Josef Skupa was a Czech puppeteer.Studied Faculty of Applied Arts in Prague. Worked as stage designer in the Plzeň City Theatre, also as designer in Skoda Engineering Works....
(1892-1957), puppeteer
- Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
(1824-1884), composer
- Emil Škoda
Emil Ritter von Škoda was a Czech engineer and industrialist.-Biography:...
(1839-1900), engineer and industrialist
- Růžena Šlemrová (1886-1962), actress
- Tomáš Šmíd
Tomáš Šmíd is a former tennis player from Czechoslovakia, who won nine singles titles during his career. In doubles, he won fifty-four titles. The right-hander reached his highest singles ATP ranking on July 16, 1984, when he became number 11 in the world...
(born 1956), tennis player
- Anna Steimarová (1889-1962), actress
- Martin Straka
Martin Straka is a Czech ice hockey centre who plays for HC Lasselsberger Plzen of the Czech Extraliga.-Playing career:...
(born 1972), ice hockey player
- Petr Sýkora
Petr Sýkora is a professional ice hockey right winger, who is currently playing for the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League . Sykora has previously played for the New Jersey Devils, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, New York Rangers, Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins...
(born 1976), ice hockey player
- Jiří Trnka
Jiří Trnka was a Czech puppet maker, illustrator, motion-picture animator and film director, renowned for his stop motion puppet animations....
(1912-1969), artist
Twin cities
Plzeň is
twinnedSister cities, also known as town twinning, is an agreement between towns, cities and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties...
with the following cities: Santo André,
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
Takasaki,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
YekaterinburgYekaterinburg , formerly Sverdlovsk is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
Izmirİzmir, historically Smyrna, is Turkey's third most populous city and the country's largest port after Istanbul. It is located along the outlying waters of the Gulf of İzmir, by the Aegean Sea. It is the seat of İzmir Province, which has an area of 7350 km
2...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
BirminghamBirmingham is the largest city in the state of Alabama in the United States. It is the county seat of Jefferson County and includes part of Shelby County. According to a 2007 estimate, the city had a population of 229,800 The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, as of the 2008 census estimates,...
,
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
,
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
RegensburgRegensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
WinterthurWinterthur is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. It has the country's sixth largest population with an estimate of more than 100,000 people. In the local dialect and by its inhabitants, it is usually abbreviated to Winti...
,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
LimogesLimoges is a city and commune in France, the préfecture of the Haute-Vienne département, and the administrative capital of the Limousin région....
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
LiègeLiège is a municipality and a city of Belgium. The term Liège or Liege may also refer to:* Liege, a party to the oath of allegiance in feudalism .* Liège Island, in the Antarctic...
,
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
HengeloHengelo is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands, in the province of Overijssel. The city lies along the motorways A1/E30 and A35 and is has a station for the International Amsterdam - Hannover - Berlin service, see Transportation....
, The Netherlands
External links