City walls of České Budějovice, Medieval fortification system in České Budějovice, Czech Republic.

The city walls of České Budějovice form a defensive system surrounding the medieval core with stone and brick towers connected by continuous barriers. The structure includes several sections at varying heights and shows how builders adapted the design to protect different parts of the enclosed settlement.

The walls grew with the city founded before 1265 at the confluence of the Vltava and Malše, which formed a natural barrier in the west and south-west. The main wall, about 7 m high and 1.6 m thick with half-cylindrical bastions, was finished around 1300; the lower outer parkán wall followed in the 14th–15th century and tall towers in the 15th. Renaissance barbicans were added in the 16th century, ravelins after a 17th-century fire, and the gates were demolished around the mid-19th century.

The gates' names record the roads they served: Pražská led north toward Prague, Svinenská toward Trhové Sviny and Vienna, Rožnovská toward Český Krumlov and Linz. A smaller Rybářská gate and the Salt Gate, too narrow for carts, pierced the main wall. Demolition of the Gothic gates around the mid-19th century provoked disputes between the German town council and Czechs who saw the monuments as part of their heritage.

The walls survive only in fragments, so there is no continuous circuit to walk; look for sections near the Mlýnská stoka and along the Malše embankment. The main gates were demolished around the middle of the 19th century, so their sites are marked only by street lines and names. Remains stand in open public space and can be viewed at any time of day.

The main wall was about 7 m high and 1.6 m thick, and in places its half-cylinder bastions stood only 30 m apart. By the 17th century the circuit held 28 towers including the gates. Near the Dominican monastery the layout broke the pattern: the narrow ward was filled by bastions such as the prismatic Pergola and the wedge-shaped Klínovitá bašta, whose sharp edge faced outward to resist gunfire.