Plzen (Pilsen), Czechia

Plzeň is a city of roughly 175,000 residents in west Bohemia, set where the Mže, Radbuza, Úhlava and Úslava rivers meet. King Wenceslaus II founded the settlement in 1295, and its skyline is still dominated by the 14th-century Saint Bartholomew's Cathedral, whose 102.6-metre spire is the tallest church tower in Czechia. The city gave its name to beer in 1842, when the Pilsner Urquell brewery produced the first bottom-fermented pale lager, a recipe copied worldwide as "pilsner". The 1892 Great Synagogue on Sady Pětatřicátníků, Europe's third-largest historical synagogue, also survives here.