Czech Republic » Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated on the Vltava River in central Bohemia, it is home to approximately 1.2 million people.

Nicknames for Prague have included "city of a hundred spires", "the golden city", "the Left Bank of the Nineties", the "mother of cities", and "the heart of Europe". Since 1992, the historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

The GDP per capita of Prague is more than double that of the Czech Republic as a whole, with a per-capita GDP (PPP) of EUR 32,357 in 2002, which is at 153% of the European Union average. The city is becoming a site of European headquarters of many international companies.

Since the late 1990s, Prague has become a popular filming location for international productions and Hollywood motion pictures. Unlike many other European cities, Prague did not suffer great destruction during World War II, and the city is often used as a "stand in" for other pre-WW2 European cities, such as Amsterdam or London. A combination of architecture, low costs, tax breaks, and the existing motion picture infrastructure has proved attractive to international film production companies.