PFC Lokomotiv Plovdiv of sporting conditions in the city. Most notably, the powerful national railway company through ZSK Plovdiv is the main benefactor for the creation of a state-of-the-art multi-purpose stadium in the city that opens in 1943. The stadium is constructed on the football pitches of the team of "Levski Plovdiv" and as such is the home grounds for both ZSK Plovdiv and Levski Plovdiv. As a result, the stadium is named "ZSK-Levski". In the years after 1944, the newly established communist rule embarks in several campaigns for "reorganisation of the sporting clubs in Bulgaria" so that they are aligned with the
Plovdiv institution outside the United States, the American College of Sofia, was founded in Plovdiv in 1860 and later moved to Sofia. On 5 September 2014, Plovdiv was selected as the Bulgarian host of the European Capital of Culture 2019. This happened with the help of the Municipal Foundation "Plovdiv 2019″, a non-government organization, which was established in 2011 by Plovdiv's City Council whose main objectives were to develop and to prepare Plovdiv's bid book for European Capital of Culture in 2019. Plovdiv was given various names throughout its long history. The Odrysian capital "Odryssa" () is suggested to have been