Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest is the capital of Romania and home to roughly 1.8 million people along the Dâmbovița River. The settlement was first recorded in 1459 and became the national capital in 1862. The Palace of the Parliament, ordered by Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1984, weighs 4.1 million tonnes and ranks as the world's heaviest building and the second-largest administrative structure. Nearby, the Lipscani street district in the Old Town survives beside the Romanian Athenaeum, a concert hall that opened in 1888. How these layers fit together shapes much of what visitors find today.