Comprehensive information and links about Czech Republic

Czech Republic Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country has borders with Poland to the north, Germany to the northwest and west, Austria to the south, and Slovakia to the east. Historic Prague (Czech: ), a major tourist attraction, is its capital and largest city. Other major cities include Brno, Ostrava, Zlín, Plzeň, Pardubice, Hradec Králové, České Budějovice, Liberec, Olomouc, and Ústí nad Labem.

The country is composed of two entire historic regions, Bohemia and Moravia, parts of Silesia and small sections of historic Lower Austria. On May 1, 2004, it became a member state of the European Union.

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1993 announced that the name is to be used in all situations other than formal official documents and the full names of government institutions [1], [2], but this has not caught on in English usage. Its Czech equivalent faced opposition of the Czech people as well, but now it seems to be quite settled down in the language.

Archaeologists have found evidence of prehistoric human settlement in the area dating back to the Neolithic era. In the classical era, from the 3rd century BC Celtic migrations, the Boii (see Bohemia) and later in the 1st century Germanic tribes of Marcomanni and Quadi settled there. During the Migration Period of ca. the 5th century, many Germanic tribes moved westward and southward out of Central Europe. In an equally significant migration, Slavic people from the Black Sea and Carpathian regions settled in the area (a movement that was also stimulated by the onslaught of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns, Avars, Bulgars and Magyars). Following in the Germans' wake, they moved southward into Bohemia, Moravia, and some of present day Austria.

During the 7th century the Frankish merchant Samo, supporting the Slavs fighting their Avar rulers, became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe. The Moravian principality arose in the 8th century (see under Great Moravia).

The Bohemian or Czech state emerged in the late 9th century when it was unified by the Přemyslids. The kingdom of Bohemia was a significant local power during the Middle Ages. It was part of the Holy Roman Empire during the entire existence of this confederation.

Religious conflicts such as the 15th century Hussite Wars and the 17th century Thirty Years War had a devastating affect on the local population. Bohemia later came under Habsburg influence and became part of Austria-Hungary.

Following the collapse of this empire after World War I, the independent republic of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918. This new country contained large German, Hungarian and Polish minorities. Although Czechoslovakia was a democratic and liberal state guaranteeing and also implementing cultural and language rights to its minorities (schools in German language areas were entirely German), the centralistic state did not grant its minorities territorial political autonomy, which resulted in discontent and strong support among the minorities to break away from Czechoslovakia. Hitler used the opportunity and, supported by Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German Party, gained the majority German speaking Sudetenland through the Munich Agreement. Poland occupied majority Polish speaking areas around Cesky Tesin, while Slovakia gained greater autonomy, with the state being renamed to "Czecho-Slovakia". Eventually Slovakia broke away further in 1939 and the remaining Czech territory was occupied by Hitler who installed the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which was proclaimed part of the Reich and where the Protectorate President and Prime Minister were subordinate to the Nazi ('imperial protector'). Appr. 125 000 citizens, including 83 000 Jews, were killed, and hundreds of thousand of others were sent to prisons and concentration camps or forced labour. Czechoslovak government-in-exile and its army fighting against Nazis were acknowledged by Allies.

From 1945 to 1948 the Sudetenland was cleansed of ethnic Germans (under the so-called Beneš decrees and the Treaty of Potsdam). About 3 million Germans, almost the entire German minority of pre-War Czechoslovakia, were expelled to Germany and Austria. As a consequence, 15 000 - 30 000 (according to the official German-Czech Committee of Historians) Germans were killed or otherwise died. Only a few who had been active in the resistance or were required for economic reasons were allowed to stay, though many of them emigrated later due to the anti-German sentiment prevalent in post War Czechoslovakia.

In 1948, a reconstituted Czechoslovakia fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. In 1968, an invasion by Warsaw Pact troops ended the efforts of the country's leaders to liberalize party rule and create "socialism with a human face" during the Prague Spring. In 1989, Czechoslovakia regained its political independence through a peaceful "Velvet Revolution". On January 1, 1993, the country peacefully split in two, creating the independent Czech and Slovak republics.

The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

According to its constitution, the Czech Republic is a parliamentary democracy whose head of state is a president, indirectly elected every five years by the parliament. The president is also granted specific powers such as the right to nominate Constitutional Court judges, dissolve parliament under certain conditions, complete immunity, and enact a veto on legislation. He also appoints the prime minister, who sets the agenda for most foreign and domestic policy, as well the other members of the cabinet on a proposal by the prime minister.

The Czech parliament (). The 200 Chamber delegates are elected for 4-year terms, on the basis of proportional representation. The 81 members of the Czech Senate serve for 6-year terms with one-third being elected every 2 years on the basis of two-round majority voting.

The country's highest court of appeals is the Supreme Court. The Constitutional Court, which rules on constitutional issues, is appointed by the president, and its members serve 10-year terms.

) consists of Land and Air Forces and of specialized support units. Being a member of NATO since 1999, the strong completes a major overhaul of the extensive Czechoslovak armed forces which until 1989 formed one of the pillars of the Warsaw Pact military alliance. Czech forces have been gradually downsized from 200,000 to 35,000 and at the same time modernized and reoriented toward defensive posture. In year 2004 the army transformed into fully professional organization and compulsory military service has been ended.

The structure of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic is as follows:

The Czech landscape is quite varied; Bohemia to the west consists of a basin, drained by the Elbe (Czech: ) and Vltava rivers, surrounded by mostly low mountains such as the Sudeten with its part Krkonoše, where one also finds the highest point in the country, the Sněžka at 1,602 m. Moravia, the eastern part, is also quite hilly and is drained predominantly by the Morava river, but also contains the source of the Oder (Czech: ) river. Water from the landlocked Czech Republic flows to three different seas: the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Black Sea.

The local climate is temperate with warm summers and cold, cloudy, humid winters, typified by a mixture of maritime and continental influences.

One of the most stable and prosperous of the post-Communist states, the Czech Republic has been recovering from recession since mid-1999. Growth in 2000-2001 was led by exports to the EU, especially Germany, and foreign investment, while domestic demand is reviving. The rate of corruption remains one of the highest among OECD countries.

Uncomfortably high fiscal and current account deficits could be future problems.

Moves to complete banking, telecommunications, and energy privatisation will add to foreign investment, while intensified restructuring among large enterprises and banks and improvements in the financial sector should strengthen output growth.

The Czech government has expressed a desire to adopt the euro currency in 2010, but the introduction of the currency is currently only in the early planning stages.

The majority of the inhabitants of the Czech Republic (95%) are ethnically Czech and speak Czech, a member of the Slavic languages. Other ethnic groups include Slovaks, Germans, Roma, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles. After the 1993 division, some Slovaks remained in the Czech Republic and comprise roughly 2% of the current population.

Religion

Despite the very visible presence of cathedrals and church buildings all over the country, the majority of Czechs (59%) are agnostics or atheists or without any dogmatic organization of belief, mostly as a consequence of the anti-religious policy during the communist era. Significant religious groups include Roman Catholics (27%), Protestants (1.2%), and Czechoslovak Hussites (1%).

Much of the material in these articles comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.