Pécs is the fourth largest city of Hungary, located in the south-west of the country. Pécs has been selected to be the European Capital of Culture in 2010 sharing the title together with Essen and Istanbul. The city's motto will be: "The Borderless City".

The name of the city reflects its history. The earliest name for the territory was its Roman name of Sopianæ. The name possibly comes from the plural of the Celtic sop meaning marsh. The mediaeval city was first mentioned in 871 under the name Quinque Basilicae ("five cathedrals".) The name refers to the fact that when constructing the churches of the city, the builders used material from five old Christian chapels. In later Latin documents the city was mentioned as Quinque Ecclesiae ("five churches", a name identical in meaning to the German name Fünfkirchen and to the Slovak name Pä�kostolie.)

The name Pécs appears in documents in 1235 in the word Pechyut (with modern spelling: pécsi út, means "road to/from Pécs"). The name Pécs is of Slavic origin and means phonetically "five" or "furnace" in the Slavic languages (There is a town in Kosovo with similar name – Peæ). It is thought that the name of another Hungarian city, Pest (today part of Budapest), has the same origin. There is another theory that name was coined from the name of a Turkish explorer, Pechevy, who described the city in detail.

Pécs has counted many peoples as its residents. It has a long history dating back to ancient times, with archeological findings dating back to 6,000 years ago. Before the Roman rule, it was probably inhabited by Celts. In the late 9the century, the Hungarians conquered the area of modern day Hungary, and Pécs became part of the Hungarian realm. After 1526, Pécs came under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans fortified the city and turned it into a real Ottoman city. The Christian churches were turned into mosques; Turkish baths and minarets were built, Quran schools were founded, there was a bazaar in place of the market. Many of these buildings can still be found in Pécs today. The city was ruled by Muslim officials according to the Sharia law. For a hundred years the city was an island of peace in a land of war.

After the Socialist era and the chaotic and hard years after the changes, Pécs witnessed a revival in the 2000s, with a new motorway under construction between the city and Budapest, a new ring road bypassing the centre, a succesful bid to host the 2010 European Capital of Culture with many major projects for the development of the city under way, a critically acclaimed yearly national theater festival (POSZT), a new airport for the city and incorporation of a part of the city centre including an early Christian necropolis as a World Heritage site.