The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The Czech Republic has a hilly landscape that covers an area of 78,871 square kilometers (30,452 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city is Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň and Liberec.
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 history of Slovakia dates back to the findings of ancient human artifacts. This article shows the history of the country from prehistory to the present day.
The Slavs or Slavic people are a grouping of related ethnic groups which speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southeastern Europe, though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states, Northern Asia, and Central Asia, as well as Japan and Australia. Continued immigration has resulted in the development of a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
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 the Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state both geographically and politically.
Olomouc is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 102,000 inhabitants and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019).
Demographic features of the population of the Czech Republic include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations.
The Czechs, or the Czech people, are a West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and the Czech language.
The Slovaks are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Slovakia who share a common ancestry, culture, history and speak the Slovak language.
Great Moravia, or simply Moravia, was the first major state that was predominantly West Slavic to emerge in the area of Central Europe, possibly including territories which are today part of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia and Ukraine. The formations preceding it in these territories were the Samo's tribal union and the Pannonian Avar state.
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, usually refers to the Sudeten Germans, although 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 Germans in 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 is a historical-geographical term that, in a historical context, refers the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia together before Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic were formed. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1918 and the Czech Republic since 1 January 1993.
The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encompassing the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, the westernmost regions of Ukraine and Belarus, and a bit of eastern Lithuania. In addition, there are several language islands such as the Sorbian areas in Lusatia in Germany, and Slovak areas in Hungary and elsewhere.
Silesians is a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Europe divided by the current national boundaries of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Historically, the region of Silesia has been inhabited by Polish, Czechs and later in modern era by Germans. Therefore, the term Silesian can refer to anyone of these ethnic groups. However, in 1945, great demographic changes occurred in the region as a result of the Potsdam Agreement leaving most of the region ethnically Polish and/or Slavic Upper Silesian. Silesian dialect is one of the main dialects of the Polish language and based on Polish/Lechitic grammar. The names of Silesia in different languages most likely share their etymology—Polish: ; German: ; Czech: Slezsko ; Lower Silesian: Schläsing; Silesian: Ślōnsk ; Lower Sorbian: Šlazyńska ; Upper Sorbian: Šleska ; Latin, Spanish and English: Silesia; French: Silésie; Dutch: Silezië; Italian: Slesia; Slovak: Sliezsko; Kashubian: Sląsk. The names all relate to the name of a river and mountain in mid-southern Silesia, which served as a place of cult for pagans before Christianization.
Mikulov is a town in Břeclav District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,700 inhabitants. The historic centre of Mikulov is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation.
The United States of Greater Austria was an unrealized proposal made in 1906 to federalize Austria-Hungary to help resolve widespread ethnic and nationalist tensions. It was conceived by a group of scholars surrounding Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, notably by the ethnic Romanian lawyer and politician Aurel Popovici.
The history of Czechoslovak nationality involves the rise and fall of national feeling among Czechs and Slovaks. Once forming a rather unified group, they were historically separated, unified under a democratic system, separated during threat of war, and reunified under a socialist authoritarian regime. However, a democratization process has led to a definition of separate statehood for the majority of Czechs and Slovaks.
The Czech–Slovak languages are a subgroup within the West Slavic languages comprising the Czech and Slovak languages.
Czechoslovaks is a designation that was originally designed to refer to a united panethnicity of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. It has later adopted two distinct connotations, the first being the aforementioned supra-ethnic meaning, and the second as a general term for all citizens of the former Czechoslovakia regardless of ethnicity. Cultural and political advocates of Czechoslovak identity have historically ascribed the identity to be applicable to all people of Czech and Slovak heritage both in the country and in the diaspora.
