country has the highest human development in Central and Eastern Europe,[9] ranking as a "Very High Human Development" nation. It is also ranked as the third most peaceful country in Europe[10] and most democratic and healthy (by infant mortality) country in the region.[11][12] Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2.1 Prehistory 2.2 Bohemia 2.3 Czechoslovakia 2.4 Velvet revolution and independence 3 Politics 3.1 Foreign relations 3.2 Military 3.3 Administrative divisions 4 Geography 4.1 Climate 5 Economy 5.1 Transportation infrastructure 5.2 Communications 5.3 Science 5.4 Tourism 6 Demographics 6.1 Religion 7 Culture 7.1 Music 7.2 Literature 7.3 Theatre 7.4 Cuisine 7.5 Sports 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links Etymology Main article: Name of the Czech Republic The traditional English name "Bohemia" derives from Latin "Boiohaemum", which means "home of the Boii". The current name comes from the Czech endonym Cechy using the antiquated spelling Czechy, identical to the Polish spelling.[13] The country has been traditionally divided into lands, namely Bohemia proper (Cechy) in the west, Moravia (Morava) in the southeast, and Czech Silesia (Slezsko; the smaller, south-eastern part of historical Silesia, most of which is located within modern Poland) in the northeast. Known officially as the "Crown of the Kingdom of Bohemia" since the 14th century, a number of other names of the country had been used, including the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Czech/Bohemian lands, Bohemian Crown, Lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas etc. When the country regained its independence after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, the new name of Czechoslovakia was coined to reflect the union of the Czech and Slovak nations within the new country. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word name in English. In 1993, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested the name Czechia /'t??ki?/ (Cesko Czech pronunciation: ['t??sk?] in Czech) as an official alternative in all situations other than formal official documents and the full names of government institutions; however, this has not become widespread in English, even though most other languages have single-word names for the country (usually their own variants of "Czechia"). History Main article: History of the Czech lands Prehistory Great Moravia during the reign of Svatopluk I Archaeologists have found evidence of prehistoric human settlements in the area, dating back to the Neolithic era. In the classical era, from the 3rd century BC Celtic migrations, the Boii and later in the 1st century, Germanic tribes of Marcomanni and Quadi settled there. During the Migration Period around the 5th century, many Germanic tribes moved westwards and southwards out of Central Europe. Wenceslaus II. King of Bohemia and Poland Drawing by Jan Matejko Slavic people from the Black Sea-Carpathian region 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 southwards 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. Bohemia Premysl Ottokar II, (c. 1233–1278), King of Bohemia and ruler of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola The Bohemian or Czech state emerged in the late 9th century, when it was unified by the Premyslid dynasty. The Kingdom of Bohemia was, as the only kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, a significant regional power during the Middle Ages. It was part of the Empire from 1002 till 1806, with the exception of years 1440–1526. In 1212, King Premysl Otakar I, bearing the title "king" since 1198, extracted a Golden Bull of Sicily (a formal edict) from the emperor, confirming the royal title for Otakar and his descendants. Large-scale German immigration occurred in the 13th century. The Germans populated towns and mining districts on the Bohemian periphery and, in some cases, formed German colonies in the interior of the Czech lands. In 1235, the mighty Mongol army launched an invasion of Europe. After the Battle of Legnica, the Mongols carried their devastating raid into Moravia, but they were beaten by the Czech royal army in a battle of Olomouc and continued into Hungarian lands.[14] King Premysl Otakar II earned the nickname "Iron and Golden King" because of his military power and wealth. He acquired Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, thus spreading the Bohemian territory to the Adriatic Sea. He met his death at the Battle on the Marchfeld in 1278 in a war with his rival, King Rudolph I of Germany.[15] Ottokar's son Wenceslaus II acquired the Polish crown in 1300 for himself and the Hungarian crown for his son. He built a great empire stretching from the Danube river to the Baltic Sea. In 1306, the last king of Premyslid line was murdered in mysterious circumstances in Olomouc while he was resting. After a series of dynastic wars, the House of Luxembourg gained the Bohemian throne.[16] Charles IV, 1316–78, eleventh king of Bohemia, elected as the Nejvetší Cech (Greatest Czech) of all time.[17] The 14th century, particularly the reign of Czech King Charles IV, who became also King of Italy, King of the Romans and Holy Roman Emperor, is considered the Golden Age of Czech history. Of particular significance was the founding of Charles University in Prague in 1348, Charles Bridge, Charles Square and were completed much of the Prague Castle and cathedral of Saint Vitus. The Black Death, which had raged in Europe from 1347 to 1352, decimated the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1380,[18] killing about 10% of the population.[19] In the 15th century, the religious and social reformer Jan Hus formed a movement later named after him. Although Hus was named a heretic and burnt in Constanz in 1415, his followers seceded from the Catholic Church and in the Hussite Wars (1419–1434) defeated five crusades organized against them by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. Petr Chelcický continued with Czech Hussite Reformation movement. During the next two centuries, 90% of the inhabitants became adherents of the Hussite Christian movement. After 1526 Bohemia came increasingly under Habsburg control as the Habsburgs became first the elected and then the hereditary[when?] rulers of Bohemia. The Defenestration of Prague and subsequent revolt against the Habsburgs in 1618 marked the start of the Thirty Years' War, which quickly spread throughout Central Europe. In 1620, the rebellion in Bohemia was crushed at the Battle of White Mountain, and the ties between Bohemia and Habsburgs' hereditary lands in Austria were strengthened. The war had a devastating effect on the local population; the people were given the choice either to convert to Catholicism or leave the country. The following period, from 1620 to the late 18th century, has been often called the "Dark Age". The population of the Czech lands declined by a third through war, disease, famine and the expulsion of the Protestant Czechs.[20] The Habsburgs banned all religions other than Catholicism.[21] Ottoman Turks and Tatars invaded Moravia in 1663.[22] In 1679–1680 the Czech lands faced a devastating plague and an uprising of serfs.[23] The reigns of Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and co-regent from 1765, were characterized by enlightened absolutism. In 1742, most of Silesia, then the possession of the Bohemian crown, was seized by King Frederick II of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. The Great Famine, which lasted from 1770 until 1771, killed about one tenth of the Czech population, or 250,000 inhabitants, and radicalized countrysides leading to peasant uprisings.[24] After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia became part of the Austrian Empire and later of Austria–Hungary. Serfdom was not completely abolished until 1848. After the Revolutions of 1848, Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria instituted an absolute monarchy in an effort to balance competing ethnic interests in the empire. Czechoslovak troops in Vladivostok, Siberia (1918). Czechoslovakia Main article: History of Czechoslovakia An estimated 1.4 million Czech soldiers fought in World War I, of them some 150,000 died. More than 90,000 Czech volunteers formed the Czechoslovak Legions in France, Italy and Russia, where they fought against the Central Powers and later against Bolshevik troops.[25] Following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, the independent republic of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918. This new country incorporated the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia) and parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (Slovakia and the Carpathian Ruthenia) with significant German, Hungarian, Polish and Ruthenian speaking minorities.[26] Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, first president of Czechoslovakia. Although Czechoslovakia was a unitary state, it provided what were at the time rather extensive rights to its minorities and remained the only democracy in this part of Europe in the interwar period. The effects of the Great Depression including high unemployment and massive propaganda from Nazi Germany, however, resulted in discontent and strong support among ethnic Germans for a break from Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler took advantage of this opportunity and, using Konrad Henlein's separatist Sudeten German Party, gained the largely German speaking Sudetenland (and its substantial Maginot Line like border fortifications) through the 1938 Munich Agreement (signed by Nazi Germany, France, Britain and Italy), despite the mobilization of 1.2 million-strong Czechoslovak army and the Franco-Czech military alliance. Poland annexed the Zaolzie area around Ceský Tešín. Hungary gained parts of Slovakia and the Subcarpathian Rus as a result of the First Vienna Award in November 1938. The remainders of Slovakia and the Subcarpathian Rus gained greater autonomy, with the state renamed to "Czecho-Slovakia". After Nazi Germany threatened to annex part of Slovakia, allowing the remaining regions to be partitioned by Hungary and Poland, Slovakia chose to maintain its national and territorial integrity, seceding from Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939, and allying itself, as demanded by Germany, with Hitler's coalition.[27] The remaining Czech territory was occupied by Germany, which transformed it into the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The protectorate was proclaimed part of the Third Reich, and the president and prime minister were subordinate to the Nazi Germany's Reichsprotektor ("imperial protector"). Subcarpathian Rus declared independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine on 15 March 1939 but was invaded by Hungary the same day and formally annexed the next day. Approximately 345,000 Czechoslovak citizens, including 277,000 Jews, were killed or executed while hundreds of thousands of others were sent to prisons and concentration camps or used as forced labour. Perhaps two–thirds of the Czech nation was destined either for extermination or removal.[28] A Nazi German concentration camp existed at Terezín, north of Prague. A memorial to 82 Lidice children murdered by the Nazi Germans in Chelmno. There was Czech resistance to Nazi occupation, both at home and abroad, most notably with the assassination of Nazi German leader Reinhard Heydrich in a Prague suburb on 27 May 1942. The Czechoslovak government-in-exile and its army fighting against the Germans were acknowledged by the Allies; Czech/Czechoslovak troops fought from the very beginning of the war in Poland, France, the UK, North Africa, the Middle East and the Soviet Union. The German occupation ended on 9 May 1945, with the arrival of the Soviet and American armies and the Prague uprising. An estimated 140,000 Soviet soldiers died in conquering Czechoslovakia from German rule.[29] In 1945–1946, almost the entire German minority in Czechoslovakia, about 3 million people, were expelled to Germany and Austria. During this time, thousands of Germans were held in prisons and detention camps or used as forced labour. In the summer of 1945, there were several massacres. The only Germans not expelled were some 250,000 who had been active in the resistance against the Nazi Germans or were considered economically important, though many of these emigrated later. Following a Soviet-organised referendum, the Subcarpathian Rus never returned under Czechoslovak rule but became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as the Zakarpattia Oblast in 1946. Czechoslovakia uneasily tried to play the role of a "bridge" between the West and East. However, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia rapidly increased in popularity, with a general disillusionment with the West, because of the pre-war Munich Agreement, and a favourable popular attitude towards the Soviet Union, because of the Soviets' role in liberating Czechoslovakia from German rule. In the 1946 elections, the Communists gained 38%[30] of the votes and became the largest party in the Czechoslovak parliament. They formed a coalition government with other parties of the National Front and moved quickly to consolidate power. The decisive step took place in February 1948, during a series of events characterized by Communists as a "revolution" and by anti-Communists as a "takeover", the Communist People's Militias secured control of key locations in Prague, and a new all-Communist government was formed. For the next 41 years, Czechoslovakia was a Communist state within the Eastern Bloc. This period is characterized by lagging behind the West in almost every aspect of social and economic development. The country's GDP per capita fell from the level of neighboring Austria below that of Greece or Portugal in the 1980s. The Communist government completely nationalized the means of production and established a command economy. The economy grew rapidly during the 1950s but slowed down in the 1960s and 1970s and stagnated in the 1980s. The political climate was highly repressive during the 1950s, including numerous show trials and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, but became more open and tolerant in the late 1960s, culminating in Alexander Dubcek's leadership in the 1968 Prague Spring, which tried to create "socialism with a human face" and perhaps even introduce political pluralism. This was forcibly ended by 21 August 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion. The Czech Republic became a member of the European Union in 2004, signed the Lisbon Treaty in 2007 and ratified it in 2009 as the last EU member. The invasion was followed by a harsh program of "Normalization" in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Until 1989, the political establishment relied on censorship of the opposition. Dissidents published Charter 77 in 1977, and the first of a new wave of protests were seen in 1988. Between 1948 and 1989 more than 250,000 Czechs and Slovaks were sent to prison for "anti-state activities" and over 400,000 emigrated.[31] Velvet revolution and independence Non-violent protesters face armed policemen In November 1989, Czechoslovakia returned to a liberal democracy through the peaceful "Velvet Revolution". However, Slovak national aspirations strengthened and on 1 January 1993, the country peacefully split into the independent Czech Republic and Slovakia. Both countries went through economic reforms and privatisations, with the intention of creating a capitalist economy. This process was largely successful; in 2006 the Czech Republic was recognised by the World Bank as a "developed country",[8] and in 2009 the Human Development Index ranked it as a nation of "Very High Human Development".[9] From 1991, the Czech Republic, originally as part of Czechoslovakia and now in its own right, has been a member of the Visegrád Group and from 1995, the OECD. The Czech Republic joined NATO on 12 March 1999 and the European Union on 1 May 2004. It held the Presidency of the European Union for the first half of 2009. Politics Main article: Politics of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus, current President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel, the first President of the Czech Republic The Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy, with the Prime Minister as head of government. The Parliament (Parlament Ceské republiky) is bicameral, with the Chamber of Deputies (Czech: Poslanecká snemovna) (200 members) and the Senate (Czech: Senát) (81 members). The President of the Czech Republic is selected by a joint session of the parliament for a five-year term, with no more than two consecutive terms. The president is a formal head of state with limited specific powers, most importantly to return bills to the parliament, nominate Constitutional court judges for the Senate's approval and dissolve the parliament under certain special and unusual circumstances. He also appoints the prime minister, as well the other members of the cabinet on a proposal by the prime minister. The Prime Minister is the head of government and wields considerable powers, including the right to set the agenda for most foreign and domestic policy, mobilize the parliamentary majority and choose government ministers. The members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected for a four year term by proportional representation, with a 5% election threshold. There are 14 voting districts, identical to the country's administrative regions. The Chamber of Deputies, the successor to the Czech National Council, has the powers and responsibilities of the now defunct federal parliament of the former Czechoslovakia. The members of the Senate are elected in single-seat constituencies by two-round runoff voting for a six-year term, with one-third elected every even year in the autumn. The first election was in 1996, for differing terms. This arrangement is modeled on the U.S. Senate, but each constituency is roughly the same size and the voting system used is a two-round runoff. The Senate is unpopular among the public and suffers from low election turnout, overall roughly 30% in the first round and 20% in the second. Foreign relations Main article: Foreign relations of the Czech Republic Membership in the European Union is central in Czech Republic's foreign policy. The Czech Republic held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first half of 2009. Czech officials have[vague] supported dissenters in Burma, Belarus, Moldova and Cuba.[32] Czech soldier in Afghanistan Military Main article: Military of the Czech Republic The Czech armed forces consist of the Army, Air Force and of specialized support units. The president of the Czech Republic, currently Václav Klaus, is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. In 2004 the army transformed itself into a fully professional organization and compulsory military service was abolished. The country has been a member of NATO since 12 March 1999. Defence spending is around 1.8% of the GDP (2006). Currently, as a member of NATO, the Czech military are participating in ISAF and KFOR operations and have soldiers in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Main equipment includes: multirole fighters JAS-39 Gripen, combat aircraft Aero L-159 Alca, attack helicopters Mi-24, armoured vehicles Pandur II, OT-64, OT-90, BVP-2 and Czech modernized tanks T-72 (T-72M4CZ). Main foreign industry suppliers are Russia, the United States and Germany. Administrative divisions See also: Regions of the Czech Republic and Districts of the Czech Republic Since 2000, the Czech Republic is divided into thirteen regions (Czech: kraje, singular kraj) and the capital city of Prag