Bucharest is the capital of Romania, and its largest city. It sits in the south of the country, on a wide plain, not up in the mountains. English speakers usually say Boo-kuh-REST, with the weight on the last part. The Romanian name is București. It is a real working capital — government, universities, traffic, and a mix of older buildings and new ones — not a tiny town that happens to hold the parliament. People sometimes nicknamed it 'Little Paris' because of older architecture; that is a tourist line, not a geography fact. The mix-up you must watch is with Budapest, which is Hungary's capital and a different city in a different country.