Ploești

Ploiești lies on the Wallachian plain north of Bucharest, along routes linking Transylvania and the Danube basin. It is recorded as a village in 1503 and became a market town under the Wallachian prince Michael the Brave in 1597. Its position helped it grow as a centre of commerce and crafts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, eventually overtaking older nearby market towns.