Plauen is, with around 65,000 inhabitants, the fifth-largest city of the Free State of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest city in the Saxon Vogtland. The city lies on the Whiter Elster River, in the Central Vogtlandian Hill Country. Plauen is the southwesternmost city of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. It is the capital of the Vogtland District. Plauen borders Thuringia to the north, and it is also situated near the Saxon border with Bavaria (Franconia) and the Czech Republic (Bohemia).

Although being a Saxon city, the regional Vogtlandian dialect spoken in Plauen is a (Saxon-influenced) East Franconian variant related to the dialects of neighbouring Franconia in Bavaria. The name of the city as well as the names of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin. Plauen and the surrounding Saxon Vogtland are known as the centre of the German embroidery and lace industry.

Main sights include:

• Lace curtain factory, 1980
• Embroidery Machine Museum
• Museum Plauener Spitze
• Galerie e.O. plauen
• Old Town Hall
• Elster Viaduct - second largest brick bridge in the world
• Friedensbrücke - largest stone arch bridge in the world
• Johanniskirche
• Old Elster Viaduct - oldest bridge in Saxony
• Malzhaus