The article examines the early history of one of the largest historical cities of the Czech Republic – Pilsen. It is shown that the city went through two stages in its development: initially it was one of the most important regional towns of the medieval Bohemian state, and in 1295, in the immediate vicinity of the old settlement, a royal city was founded, endowed with self-government rights and other privileges on the basis of city law, which became the center of economic life and a point of concentration of the population.