Pécs

The Romans founded Sopianae at the beginning of the 2nd century in a land of Celtic and Pannonian tribes, a group of wine-producing colonies whose centre lay where the Bishop's Palace now stands. By the 4th century it was the capital of the province of Valeria and a significant early Christian centre, and its decorated burial chambers, with chapels above and tombs below, are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The medieval town appears in 871 as Quinque Basilicae, later Quinque Ecclesiae — five churches — the meaning behind its German name, Fünfkirchen.

Stephen I founded the diocese of Pécs in 1009, and Peter Orseolo, the second king of Hungary, was buried in the cathedral in 1046. In 1367 Louis I founded a university here, the first in Hungary, on the advice of the bishop William of Koppenbach. After the defeat at Mohács in 1526 Suleiman's armies plundered the town, and in June 1543 the bishop handed its keys to the Ottomans. For almost 150 years Pécs was an Ottoman town: churches became mosques, baths and Qur'an schools were built, and a bazaar replaced the market. The mosque of Pasha Qasim on the main square and the Yakovalı Hasan Pasha Mosque survive from this time.

The Austrian army retook the city in the siege of 1686. German settlers arrived from 1688, and for a long time only about a quarter of the population was Hungarian. Coal mining, the Zsolnay ceramics works, Angster organs and Littke sparkling wine drove 19th-century growth, and the railway reached Budapest in 1882. After 1920 the university of Pressburg moved here. Part of the German community was expelled in 1945–48; coal and uranium mining continued until the mines eventually closed. In 2010 Pécs was a European Capital of Culture.

Pécs has been a meeting place of cultures for two thousand years, and it shows it openly. Christian churches stand beside Ottoman mosques, minarets and baths, and the city has the largest number of Ottoman buildings in Central Europe. The Croat, German and Roma minorities keep their own institutions, among them a Croatian theatre, and the Yakovalı Hasan Pasha Mosque is still used by local Muslims.

Art is the other strand. The Zsolnay factory's glazed ceramics, known for their lustrous eosin glaze, were used to decorate numerous buildings, and a Zsolnay fountain stands in the city. Káptalan utca is lined with museums, including those devoted to the visionary painter Csontváry and to Victor Vasarely, the founder of op art. The European Capital of Culture year of 2010 brought the Kodály Centre concert hall, a regional library and knowledge centre, the Museum Street and the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter in the old factory grounds.

The university gives the city a young population and a busy calendar. University Days in April bring a student rector election and a music festival, the Sétatér festival fills the centre with music and wine stalls in September, and the city's theatres include the National Theatre, a puppet theatre and a summer theatre. Padlocks are fastened to the fences on the street from the main square to the cathedral.

Pécs had about 156,000 inhabitants at the 2011 census, about two-fifths of the population of Baranya County, down from some 180,000 in the 1980s. It is the largest city in Transdanubia and the fifth-largest in Hungary, the administrative and economic centre of Baranya County and the seat of a Catholic diocese.

The University of Pécs is the city's defining institution, with around 20,000 students, about a quarter of them from abroad; its medical school has a large programme in English and a newer one in German. The coal and uranium mines have closed, leaving only a sand mine, and the university, county institutions, the Pécsi Sörfőzde brewery and tourism are prominent in the city's economy today. Attila Péterffy has been mayor since 2019 and was re-elected in 2024.

Life is lived on two levels. The flat south of the city holds the railway station and the plain beyond, while the north climbs the Mecsek slopes, with woods above. In summer cool air flows down from the hills at night. International students add many languages to the streets of the centre, and the Mecsek woods are close at hand above the city.

Pécs eats in the style of southern Hungary. Halászlé, the hot paprika fish soup of carp or mixed river fish, is native to the Danube and Tisza regions and is also cooked across the border in Croatian Baranya, where it is called fiš paprikaš. It is among the spiciest dishes native to Europe.

Wine has been made here since the Romans founded Sopianae as a group of wine-producing colonies. The Villány hills to the south make full-bodied reds, and the Sétatér festival each September brings wine-cellar stands into the streets of the old town. In the 19th century Littke sparkling wine, made in the city, became known well beyond Hungary.

Beer has its place too. The Pécsi Sörfőzde, founded in 1848 as the Pannónia brewery, is one of the four best-known Hungarian breweries, and it also brews an unfiltered beer. The Mecsek's dolomitic spring water is prized for its high, steady mineral content. Restaurants, cafés and wine bars line the pedestrian streets around Széchenyi tér.