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.
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.
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 pan-Slavic colors—blue, white and red—were defined by the Prague Slavic Congress, 1848, based on the symbolism of the colors of the flag of Russia, which was introduced in the late 17th century. Historically, many Slavic nations and states adopted flags and other national symbols that used some combination of those three colors. Slavic countries that use or have used the colors include: Russia, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. On the other hand, Belarus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Poland and Ukraine have never adopted all the colors.
Czechoslovakia had a peak population of 15.6 million, mainly composed of Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romani people, Silesians, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and Jews. The ethnic composition of Czechoslovakia changed overtime from Sudeten Germans being the most prominent ethnicity to Czechs and Slovaks making up two-thirds of the demographic. Amongst this demographic there was also a diverse range of religions with Roman Catholic being the most prominent. This population has been found to have had an increasing growth rate that had a declining trajectory. The population density was approximately 121 persons per square kilometre with the highest population density being in Moravia of 154 persons per square kilometre.
The Slovakia national football team represents Slovakia in men's international football competition and it is governed by the Slovak Football Association (SFZ), the governing body for football in Slovakia. Slovakia's home stadium from 2019 is the reconstructed Tehelné pole in Bratislava. Historically, up to the split in 1993, the team participated mostly as Czechoslovakia, while it also competed as Slovakia during the World War II.
German Bohemians, later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, over three million German Bohemians constituted about 23% of the population of the whole country and about 29.5% of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans migrated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electoral territory of the Holy Roman Empire, from the 11th century, mostly in the border regions of what was later called the "Sudetenland", which was named after the Sudeten Mountains.
The Scout and Guide movement in Slovakia is served by
The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of evacuations and deportations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.
Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic, including citizens and non-citizens, are the third-largest ethnic minority in the country overall, numbering more than 83,000 people according to the 2011 census.
During and after the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949, members and or supporters of the defeated Communist forces fled Greece as political refugees. The collapse of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and subsequent evacuation of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to Tashkent in 1949 led thousands of people to leave the country. It has been estimated that by 1949, over 100,000 people had left Greece for Yugoslavia and the Eastern Bloc, particularly the USSR and Czechoslovakia. These included tens of thousands of child refugees who had been forcefully evacuated by the KKE. The war wrought widespread devastation right across Greece and particularly in the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, causing many people to continue to leave the country even after it had ended.
Macedonians in Serbia are a recognized national minority in Serbia. According to the 2022 census, the population of ethnic Macedonians in Serbia is 14,767, constituting 0.2% of the total population. The vast majority of them live in Belgrade and Pančevo.
Czechs in the United Kingdom refers to the phenomenon of Czech people migrating to the United Kingdom from the Czech Republic or from the political entities that preceded it, such as Czechoslovakia. There are some people in the UK who were either born in the Czech lands or have Czech ancestry, some of whom descended from Jewish refugees who arrived during World War II.
Macedonian Canadians are Canadian citizens of ethnic Macedonian descent, who reside in Canada. According to the 2021 Census there were 39,440 Canadians who claimed full or partial Macedonian ancestry.
The Greeks in the Czech Republic have a presence dating back to the 20th century. Roughly 12,000 Greek citizens, mainly from Greek Macedonia in Northern Greece, who fled from the 1946–1949 Greek Civil War were settled in several formerly German inhabited areas in Czechoslovakia.
Macedonians in the United Kingdom refers to people from North Macedonia that have formed communities in or were born in the United Kingdom. The 2011 UK Census recorded a total of 2,983 residents who stated that their country of birth was Macedonia.
North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's 1.83 million people. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Roma, Serbs, Bosniaks, Aromanians and a few other minorities.
There is a large national community of Ukrainians in the Czech Republic. The Ukrainian national minority in the Czech Republic together with the citizens of Ukraine make up the largest membership base with more than 203,198 members.
Věra Sokolová is a Czech academic who specializes in gender studies and specifically focuses on identity policy and the construction of sexuality from a historical and social perspective, evaluating the power, structuring and defining of sexuality to transcend binary boundaries. She is the chair of the Department of Gender Studies at Charles University in Prague. She is the co-managing editor of Gender and Generation, along with Kateřina Kolářová.
