PILSEN, the second town of Bohemia, lies at the confluence of the Radbusa and the Mies, 50 miles to the south-west of Prague. It consists of the town proper, which is regularly built and surrounded with promenades on the site of the old ramparts, and of three suburbs. The most prominent buildings are the Gothic church of St Bartholomew, said to date from 1292; the Renaissance town-house, containing an interesting armoury; the new real school; and the German and Bohemian theatres. The staple article of manufacture and commerce is beer, of which about 6,000,000 gallons are brewed here annually. Other industrial products are machinery, enamelled tinware, leather, alum, paper, earthenware, stoves, and spirits, while a tolerably brisk trade is carried on in wool, feathers, cattle, and horses. In the neighbourhood are several coal-pits, iron-works, and glass-works, as well as large deposits of kaolin. The four annual fairs have lost much of their former importance. The population in 1880 was 38,883, consisting of Germans and Czechs in nearly equal proportions.

Pilsen first appears in history in 976, as the scene of a battle between Otho I. and Henry V., duke of Bavaria, and it became a town in 1272. During the Hussite wars it resisted several sieges, but it was taken by Mansfeld in 1618. Wallenstein fixed his headquarters at Pilsen in 1633-34; and it was the principal scene of the alleged conspiracy which cost him his life. The first printing press in Bohemia was set up at Pilsen in 1468.