The City of Pilsen
Basic Information
The town New Pilsen was established by order of the Czech king Wenceslas ll in 1295. It was founded partly by transfer of the old settlement from “Old Pilsen” (Starý Plzenec) and partly by colonisation.
At the beginning of the Hussite movement, Pilsen was called “the City of the Sun”. In 1420 it went over to the catholic side and later it refused George of Poděbrady as the Czech king.
In 1468 the first Czech book was printed in Pilsen (Troyan Chronicle).
In the first half of the 19th century Pilsen quickly developed. In 1842 the City Brewery was founded, a little later the engineering company Škoda .
The historical core of the city with its Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque houses dominated by the Renaissance City Hall and St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral (from 14th century) was proclaimed protected historical city reserve in 1989.
At present, the population of Pilsen is 165,000 (116,792 at productive age), average age of Pilsen citizens is 39.3.
Catastral area is 12,474 hectares
