Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction.
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked state in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and the remaining territories in the east became part of Hungary, while in the remainder of the Czech Lands, the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the north. It consists mostly of low hills and plateaus surrounded along the borders by low mountains. Two areas of lowlands follow the Elbe river and the Morava river. About a third of the area of the Czech Republic is covered by forests.
Moravia is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages. Since the 9th century Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state both geographically and politically.
Moravians are a West Slavic ethnographic group from the Moravia region of the Czech Republic, who speak the Moravian dialects of Czech or Common Czech or a mixed form of both. Along with the Silesians of the Czech Republic, a part of the population to identify ethnically as Moravian has registered in Czech censuses since 1991. The figure has fluctuated and in the 2011 census, 6.01% of the Czech population declared Moravian as their ethnicity. Smaller pockets of people declaring Moravian ethnicity are also native to neighboring Slovakia.
The German-speaking population in the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, 23.6% of the population at the 1921 census, is usually reduced to the Sudeten Germans, but actually there were other German ethno-linguistic enclaves elsewhere in Czechoslovakia inhabited by Carpathian Germans, and among the German-speaking urban dwellers there were "ethnic Germans" and/or Austrians as well as German-speaking Jews. 14% of the Czechoslovak Jews considered themselves as Germans at the 1921 census, but a much higher percentage declared German as their colloquial tongue during the last censuses under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands are the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1918, the Czech Socialist Republic since 1 January 1969 and the Czech Republic since 1 January 1993. The Czech lands are also referred to as Czechia.
The Moravian-Silesian Region is one of the 14 administrative regions of the Czech Republic. Before May 2001, it was called the Ostrava Region. The region is located in the north-eastern part of its historical region of Moravia and in most of the Czech part of the historical region of Silesia. The region borders the Olomouc Region to the west and the Zlín Region to the south. It also borders two other countries – Poland to the north and Slovakia to the east.
Regions of the Czech Republic are higher-level territorial self-governing units of the Czech Republic. Every region is governed by a regional council, headed by a governor (hejtman). Elections to regional councils take place every four years.
Since 1949, Slovakia has been divided into a number of kraje. Their number, borders and functions have been changed several times. There are eight regions of Slovakia and they correspond to the EU's NUTS 3 level of local administrative units. Each kraj consists of okresy. There are 79 districts.
A Kraj is the highest-level administrative unit in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. For lack of other English expressions, the Slavic term is often translated as "province", "region", or "territory", although it approximately means "(part of) country", or "(part of) countryside". A kraj is subdivided into okresy ("districts").
Austrian Silesia, officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Habsburg monarchy. It is largely coterminous with the present-day region of Czech Silesia and was, historically, part of the larger Silesia region.
The Žilina Region is one of the eight Slovak administrative regions and consists of 11 districts (okresy) and 315 municipalities, from which 18 have a town status. The region was established in 1923, however, in its present borders exists from 1996. It is a more industrial region with several large towns. Žilina is the region administrative center and there is a strong cultural environment in Martin.
The coat of arms of Czechoslovakia were changed many times during Czechoslovakia’s history, some alongside each other. This reflects the turbulent history of the country and a wish to use appropriate territorial coats of arms.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10th century. Jewish communities flourished here specifically in the 16th and 17th centuries, and again in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local Jews were mostly murdered in the Holocaust, or exiled at various points. As of 2021, there were only about 2,300 Jews estimated to be living in the Czech Republic.
The history of Moravia, one of the Czech lands, is diverse and characterized by many periods of foreign governance.
The Second Czechoslovak Republic existed for 169 days, between 30 September 1938 and 15 March 1939. It was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and the autonomous regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus', the latter being renamed Carpathian Ukraine on 30 December 1938.
The Margraviate of Moravia was one of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown within the Holy Roman Empire and then Austria-Hungary, existing from 1182 to 1918. It was officially administrated by a margrave in cooperation with a provincial diet. It was variously a de facto independent state, and also subject to the Duchy, later the Kingdom of Bohemia. It comprised the historical region called Moravia, which lies within the present-day Czech Republic.
