České Budějovice

Budějovice is first recorded as a village in 1251. In 1265 King Ottokar II founded a royal city on its site, planned by his knight Hirzo, fortified with three gates and immediately the political and economic centre of south Bohemia. Trade, crafts and silver mining nearby made it rich, and German-speaking settlers came from the Bohemian Forest and Upper Austria. A Jewish community lived within the walls from 1341 until a pogrom and expulsion in 1505–1506. The city's walls held out against the Hussites, but the Thirty Years' War and a fire in 1641 that destroyed two-thirds of the city set it back, and the rebuilding gave it its Baroque face. In 1785 it became the seat of a new diocese.

The 19th century brought industry. The horse-drawn railway to Linz, built in 1825–1832, was the second public railway line in continental Europe, Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth moved its pencil works here from Vienna in 1847, and in 1895 Czech burghers founded the brewery now known as Budvar. Germans were the majority until about 1880, when Czech immigration tipped the balance.

During the German occupation the city was part of the Protectorate. American bombing in March 1945 caused heavy damage, Soviet troops arrived on 9 or 10 May, and about 6,000 German residents were expelled. Today the city is the economic and political centre of the region, with a university and a bishop, and it has been chosen as European Capital of Culture for 2028.

Beer and its name shape the city's identity. Budweiser Bier, beer from Budweis, became one of the best-known lagers alongside pilsner, and the American Budweiser began as an imitation of it. For more than a century Budvar and Anheuser-Busch have fought over the name, and the Czech government has refused every offer to buy the state-owned brewery, treating the Czech Budweiser name as a matter of national pride.

The city appears in literature as a major setting of Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk and as the setting of Albert Camus's play The Misunderstanding. Its biggest annual event is Země Živitelka, an agricultural and food exhibition held at the exhibition grounds since 1973. Summer brings the Múzy na vodě festival at the confluence of the rivers and the Ema Destinnová classical concerts, and the former Church of St Anne has been a concert hall since the 1980s.

Sport is close to the heart of local life. Motor České Budějovice plays ice hockey in the top league at the Budvar Arena, SK Dynamo plays football, the city has a football stadium on Střelecký ostrov, and clubs range from volleyball and rugby to canoe slalom and cricket. Between 1956 and 1973 speedway racing drew crowds to a stadium that held 30,000 spectators. The city is preparing for its year as European Capital of Culture in 2028.

About 97,000 people live in České Budějovice, the largest city in South Bohemia, and about 180,000 in the wider agglomeration. It is the region's economic centre and the seat of many large companies, with brewing still a major industry alongside the Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth pencil works, and the University of South Bohemia keeps it lively.

The city is nearly flat in its inner parts and hillier in the eastern suburbs. Large fishponds lie in the north-west of the municipal area, some of them in the Vrbenské rybníky nature reserve. Most people live in residential districts and housing estates around the old centre, and travel by bus and trolleybus, by bike or by car; the D3 motorway now links the city with Prague, and the modernised railway brings Prague within about two hours.

Evenings centre on the pubs and arcades of the old town and, in winter, on hockey at the Budvar Arena. Lannova třída, a pedestrianised street from the station to the old town, is lined with shops, and Christmas markets fill the square from the start of Advent.

Beer is the city's signature. Budvar's Budweiser is a pale lager brewed with artesian water, Moravian barley and Saaz hops; it is sold as Budweiser Budvar in much of Europe and as Budvar or Czechvar elsewhere. Samson, the oldest operating brewery in the city, was founded in 1795. Brewing rights here go back centuries: from 1351 no pubs could stand within about 10 km of the city, and from 1410 no breweries either.

The food that goes with it is South Bohemian and Czech. Kulajda, the traditional soup of the region, is made with cream, mushrooms, dill, potatoes and an egg. Carp is the traditional Christmas fish, served in a fish soup. Restaurant menus also offer svíčková, beef with a thick root-vegetable sauce and bread dumplings; roast pork with dumplings and cabbage; roast duck with red cabbage; and smažený sýr, breaded fried cheese.

Pub snacks follow Czech habits: pivní sýr, beer cheese mixed with onion and mustard and spread on toast, and utopenci, sausages pickled in sweet-sour vinegar. Fruit dumplings filled with plums or apricots are a popular sweet.