The
Czech Republic ( , , short form
Česko
) is a country in
Central Europe.
The
country borders Poland
to the
northeast, Germany
to the west
and northwest, Austria
to the south
and Slovakia
to the
east. The capital and largest city is Prague
( ).
The country is composed of the historic regions of
Bohemia and
Moravia, as well
as parts of
Silesia.
The Czech Republic has
been a member of NATO
since 1999
and of the European Union since
2004. From 1 January 2009 to 1 July 2009, the Czech Republic
held the
Presidency of
the Council of the European Union.
Following
the Battle of
Mohács
in 1526, the Czech lands
fell under Habsburg rule, becoming
part of the Austrian
Empire
in 1804 and of Austria–Hungary in 1867. The independent Republic of Czechoslovakia
was formed in 1918, following the collapse of the
Austro-Hungarian empire after World War
I. After the Munich
Agreement, German occupation of
Czechoslovakia and the consequent disillusion with the Western response and gratitude for the
liberation of the major portion of Czechoslovakia by the Red Army
, the Communist party won
plurality (38%) in the 1946 elections. In a 1948 coup
d'état, Czechoslovakia became a communist-ruled state. In 1968, the
increasing dissatisfaction culminated in attempts to reform the
communist regime.
The events, known as the Prague Spring of 1968, ended with an invasion
by the armies of the Warsaw Pact
countries (with the exception of Romania
); the troops
remained in the country until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist
regime collapsed. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved into its
constituent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party
parliamentary representative democracy.
President Václav
Klaus is the current head of state. The
Prime Minister
is the
head of government
(currently
Jan
Fischer). The Parliament has two chambers: the
Chamber of
Deputies and the
Senate. It is also a member of
the
Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the
Council of Europe and the
Visegrád Group.
The Czech Republic made economic reforms such as fast
privatizations. Annual
gross domestic product growth has
recently been around 6%. The country is the first former member of
the
Comecon to achieve the status of a
developed country (2006),
according to the
World Bank. The Czech
Republic also ranks top among the former Comecon countries in the
Human Development
Index.
Name
The country was for centuries known as
Bohemia in
English. When the nation regained its independence in 1918, the new
name of
Czechoslovakia was adopted to reflect the union of
the Czech (Bohemian) and Slovak territories that were merged
together after the WWI. The
English
spelling of
Czech is the same as the original Czech
spelling used before the 15th century
reform which removed the digraph
cz and replaced it with a single letter that eventually
evolved into modern
č in
Čech or
Česko.
The word
Czech itself came into English later probably via
Polish.
Following the
dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the Czech half 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 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, despite the fact that many other languages have
single-word names for the country.
History
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 (see
Bohemia) 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.
In an equally significant migration,
Slavic peoples 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 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 (see
Great Moravia).
The
Bohemian or Czech
state emerged in the late 9th century, when it was unified by
the
Přemyslid dynasty. The
kingdom of
Bohemia
was a significant regional power during the
Middle Ages. It was part of the
Holy Roman Empire during the entire
existence of that confederation.
In 1212, King
Přemysl Otakar I
(1198–1230), bearing the title “king“ already since 1198, extracted
a
Golden Bull of Sicily (a
formal edict) from the emperor, confirming the royal title for
Otakar and his descendants. The 13th century was also a period of
large-scale
German immigration. 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 and after the
Battle of
Legnica, the Mongols carried their devastating raid into
Moravia. King
Přemysl Otakar II (1253–1278) earned
the nickname of "the King of Gold and Iron" due to his military
power and wealth.
He met his death at the Battle on
the Marchfeld
in 1278, in a war with his rival, the Roman king
Rudolph I of Germany. In
1306, the Přemyslid line died out and, after a series of dynastic
wars, the
House of Luxembourg
gained the Bohemian crown. The 14th century, particularly the reign
of
Charles IV
(1342–1378), is considered the Golden Age of Czech history. Of
particular significance was the founding of
Charles University in Prague in
1348. The
Black Death, which had raged
in Europe from 1347 to 1352, decimated the Kingdom of Bohemia in
1380.
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 Chelčický continued with Czech
Hussite Reformation movement. During the next two centuries, 90% of
the inhabitants converted to the Hussite form of Protestantism.
After 1526 Bohemia came increasingly under
Habsburg control as the Habsburgs became
first the elected and then the hereditary 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 Germany.
In 1620, the
rebellion in Bohemia was crushed at the Battle of
White Mountain
and the country became a province of the Austrian
monarchy. 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. Czechs call the following period,
from 1620 to the late 18th century, the "Dark Age". The population
of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine
and the expulsion of the Protestant Czechs. The Habsburgs banned
all religions other than Catholicism.
Ottoman Turks and
Tatars invaded Moravia in 1663, taking
12,000 slaves.
The reigns of
Maria Theresa of
Austria (1740–80) and her son
Joseph II (1780–90), 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 12% of the
Czech population, up to 500,000 inhabitants, and radicalized
countrysides leading to peasant uprisings.
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 attempted to rule as an
absolute monarch, keeping all the
nationalities in check.
Czechoslovakia
An estimated 150,000 Czech soldiers died in
World War I. More than 100,000 Czech volunteers
formed the
Czechoslovak Legions
in Russia, where they fought against the
Central Powers and later against
Bolshevik troops.
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 regions of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and the Carpathian Ruthenia
(known as the Subcarpathian Rus at the time) with
significant German,
Hungarian, Polish and Ruthenian speaking minorities. Although
Czechoslovakia was a
unitary state, it
provided what were at the time rather extensive rights to its
minorities. However, it did not grant its minorities any
territorial political autonomy. The failure to do so resulted in
discontent and strong support among some of the minorities for a
break from Czechoslovakia.
Adolf Hitler
took advantage of this opportunity and, supported by
Konrad Henlein's
Sudeten German Party, gained the
largely
German
speaking
Sudetenland (and its
substantial
Maginot Line like
border fortifications),
through the 1938
Munich Agreement.
Poland
annexed the Zaolzie area around Český
Těšín
. 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" (The Second
Republic; see
German
occupation of Czechoslovakia). 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. 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
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 390,000 Czechoslovak citizens,
including 83,000
Jews, were killed or executed,
while hundreds of thousands of others were sent to prisons and
concentration camps or used as forced
labour.
A
Nazi concentration camp existed at Terezín
, to the north of Prague. There was
Czech resistance to Nazi
occupation, both at home and abroad, most notably with the
assassination of Nazi 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; Czechoslovak troops
fought in the United
Kingdom
, 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. As many as 144,000 Soviet soldiers died in the
fighting for the liberation of Czechoslovakia.
In
1945–1946, almost the entire German minority in Czechoslovakia,
about 2.7 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
Nazis 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, due to the pre-war Munich Agreement, and a favourable popular
attitude towards the Soviet
Union, due to the Soviets' role in liberating
Czechoslovakia from German rule. In the 1946 elections, the
Communists gained 38% 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 (see
History of
Czechoslovakia ). This period was marked by a variety of social
developments. The Communist government completely
nationalized the
means of production and established a
command economy. The economy grew
rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s, but slowed down in the 1970s,
with increasing problems during the 1980s. The political climate
was highly repressive during the 1950s, including numerous
show trials, but became more open and tolerant in
the 1960s, culminating in
Alexander Dubček'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 the 21 August 1968
Warsaw
Pact invasion.
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, though using more "carrot" than
"whip" to secure the populace's passivity. 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.
Velvet revolution and the Czech Republic
In November 1989, Czechoslovakia returned to a liberal democracy
through the peaceful "
Velvet
Revolution".
However, Slovak national aspirations
strengthened and on January 1, 1993, the country peacefully split into
the independent Czech Republic and Slovakia. Both countries went through economic
reforms and
privatizations, with the
intention of creating a
capitalist
economy.
Due to the desire of freedom in the economic sphere and the
limitations they have suffered under the Soviet-style economy,
voters embraced the neoliberal model of economics, friendly to
globalization objectives favored by Western elites. This enabled
the Czech Republic to become the first post-communist country to
receive an investment-grade rating from international credit rating
agencies. Most state-owned heavy industries were privatized through
voucher privatization systems,
that essentially sold such assets to private concerns for a
fraction of their actual value. The Czech Republic saw for a while
modest budget deficits, low unemployment, a positive balance of
payments, a stable exchange rate and a shift of exports from former
communist economic bloc markets to Western Europe. This has changed
over the past decade (see below). The most important change, since
1989, has been the return of the right to own property.
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.
Geography
General map of the Czech
Republic
Map of the Czech Republic showing
cities and main towns
The Czech landscape is quite varied.
Bohemia, to the west, consists of a basin drained by
the Elbe ( ) and the Vltava (or Moldau) rivers, surrounded by mostly low
mountains, such as the Krkonoše
range of the Sudetes.
The
highest point in the country, Sněžka
at , is located here. Moravia, the eastern part of the country, is also
quite hilly. It is drained mainly by the
Morava River, but it also contains the source
of the
Oder River ( ).
Water from the
landlocked Czech Republic flows to three different seas: the
North
Sea
, Baltic
Sea
and Black
Sea. The Czech Republic also leases the Moldauhafen
, a lot in the
middle of the Hamburg
Docks, which was awarded to Czechoslovakia by
Article 363 of the Treaty of
Versailles, to allow the landlocked country a place where goods
transported down river could be transferred to seagoing
ships. The territory reverts to Germany in 2028.
Phytogeographically, the Czech
Republic belongs to the Central European province of the
Circumboreal Region, within the
Boreal Kingdom. According to the
World Wide Fund for Nature, the
territory of the Czech Republic can be subdivided into four
ecoregions: the Central European mixed
forests, Pannonian mixed forests,
Western European broadleaf
forests and Carpathian montane conifer forests.
Weather and climate
The Czech Republic has a temperate
continental climate, with relatively hot
summers and cold, cloudy and snowy winters. Most rain falls during
the summer. The temperature difference between summer and winter is
relatively high, due to the landlocked geographical position.
Within the Czech Republic, temperatures vary greatly, depending on
the
elevation. In general, at higher
altitudes, the temperatures decrease and
precipitation increases. Another
important factor is the distribution of the mountains; therefore,
the climate is quite varied.
At the
highest peak of Sněžka ( ), the average temperature is only , whereas in
the lowlands of the South Moravian Region
, the average temperature is as high as .
The
country's capital, Prague, has a
similar average temperature, although this is influenced by urban
factors.
The coldest month is usually January, followed by February and
December. During these months, there is usually snow in the
mountains and sometimes in the major cities and lowlands. During
March, April and May, the temperature usually increases rapidly,
especially during April, when the temperature and weather tends to
vary widely during the day. Spring is also characterized by high
water levels in the rivers, due to melting snow with occasional
flooding.
The warmest month of the year is July, followed by August and June.
On average, summer temperatures are about 20 degrees higher than
during winter. Especially in the last decade, temperatures above
are not unusual. Summer is also characterized by rain and
storms.
Autumn generally begins in September, which is still relatively
warm and dry. During October, temperatures usually fall below or
and
deciduous trees begin to shed their
leaves. By the end of November, temperatures usually range around
the freezing point.
Demographics
Population
Population of the Czech lands
| Year |
Total |
Change |
Year |
Total |
Change |
| 1857 |
7,016,531 |
— |
1930 |
10,674,386 |
+6.6% |
| 1869 |
7,617,230 |
+8.6% |
1950 |
8,896,133 |
-16.7% |
| 1880 |
8,222,013 |
+7.9% |
1961 |
9,571,531 |
+7.6% |
| 1890 |
8,665,421 |
+5.4% |
1970 |
9,807,697 |
+2.5% |
| 1900 |
9,372,214 |
+8.2% |
1980 |
10,291,927 |
+4.9% |
| 1910 |
10,078,637 |
+7.5% |
1991 |
10,302,215 |
+0.1% |
| 1921 |
10,009,587 |
-0.7% |
2001 |
10,230,060 |
-0.7% |
According to the 2001 census, the vast majority of the inhabitants
of the Czech Republic are
Czech (94.24%). The
most numerous national minorities are:
Slovaks (1.89%);
Poles (0.51%);
Germans (0.38%);
Ukrainians (0.22%);
Vietnamese (0.17%);
Hungarians (0.14%);
Russians (0.12%);
Romani (0.11%);
Bulgarians (0.04%); and
Greeks (0.03%). According to some estimates, there
are actually more than 200,000
Romani
people in the Czech Republic.
There were 431,215 foreigners residing in the country in 2008,
according to the Czech Interior Ministry, with the largest groups
being Ukrainian (131,965), Slovak (76,034), Vietnamese (60,258),
Russian (27,178), Polish (21,710), German (15,700), Moldovan
(8,038), Mongolian (6,028), Bulgarian (5,046), Chinese (4,986),
American (4,452), Belarusan (3,977), British (3,775), Serbian
(3,615), Austrian (3,373), Romanian (3,298), Kazakh (3,038),
Italian (2,351), Croatian (2,327), Dutch (2,240), French (2,140),
Bosnian (2,093), Macedonian (1,787), Armenian (1,624), Japanese
(1,494) and Uzbek (1,148).
The
Jewish
population of Bohemia and Moravia, 118,000 according to the 1930
census, was virtually annihilated by the Nazis during
the Holocaust. There were approximately 4,000
Jews in the Czech Republic in 2005.
The
fertility rate is a low
1.50 children per woman.
Immigration
increased the population by almost 1% in 2007.
Vietnamese
immigrants began settling in the Czech Republic during the
Communist period, when they were invited as
guest workers by the Czechoslovak government.
Today, there are an estimated 70,000 Vietnamese in the Czech
Republic.
At the
turn of the 20th century, Chicago
was the city with the third largest Czech
population, after Prague and Vienna
.
According to the 2006 US census, there are 1,637,218 Americans of
full or partial
Czech descent.
Religion
The Czech
Republic, along with Estonia
, has one of the least religious populations in all
of Europe. According to the 2001 census, 59% of the country
is
agnostic,
atheist or
non-believer, 26.8% is
Roman Catholic and 2.5% is
Protestant.
According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll in 2005, 19% of Czech
citizens responded that "they believe there is a God" (the second
lowest rate among European Union
countries after Estonia with 16%), whereas 50% answered that "they believe
there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 30% said that "they
do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life
force".
Politics
Political system
The Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party
parliamentary representative democracy, with the
Prime Minister as
head of government. The
Parliament (
Parlament
České republiky) is bicameral, with the
Chamber of
Deputies ( ) (200 members) and the
Senate (
Senát)(81
members).
The
President of the
Czech Republic is elected 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 modelled 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 policy
Membership in the European Union is central in Czech Republic's
foreign policy. The Czech Republic has taken over the
Presidency of
the Council of the European Union for the first half of
2009.
Czech
officials have supported dissenters in Burma
, Belarus
, Moldova
and Cuba
.
Armed forces
The Czech armed forces consist of the
Army,
Air Force and of specialized support units.
In 2004, the Czech armed forces completely phased out
conscription and transformed into a fully
volunteer military army and air
force.
The country has been a member of NATO, since March
12, 1999. Defence spending is around 1.8% of the
GDP (2006).
Regions and districts
Since
2000, the Czech Republic is divided into thirteen regions
(Czech: kraje, singular kraj)
and the capital city of Prague. Each
region has its own elected Regional Assembly (
krajské
zastupitelstvo) and
hejtman (usually translated as
hetman or "president"). In Prague, their
powers are executed by the city council and the mayor.
The older seventy-six
districts (
okresy,
singular
okres) including three
"statutory cities" (without Prague, which had special status) lost
most of their importance in 1999 in an administrative reform; they
remain as territorial divisions and seats of various branches of
state administration.
Map of the Czech Republic with
regions.
Map with districts.
| (Lic.
plate) |
Region |
Capital |
Population (2004 est.) |
Population (2008 est.) |
| A |
, the capital city (Hlavní město
Praha) |
1,170,571 |
1,223,368 |
| S |
(Středočeský kraj) |
offices located in Prague (Praha) |
1,144,071 |
1,214,356 |
| C |
(Jihočeský kraj) |
České Budějovice |
625,712 |
634,408 |
| P |
(Plzeňský kraj) |
Plzeň |
549,618 |
565,029 |
| K |
(Karlovarský kraj) |
Karlovy Vary |
304,588 |
308,450 |
| U |
(Ústecký kraj) |
Ústí nad Labem |
822,133 |
835,260 |
| L |
(Liberecký kraj) |
Liberec |
427,563 |
435,755 |
| H |
(Královéhradecký kraj) |
Hradec Králové |
547,296 |
553,503 |
| E |
(Pardubický kraj) |
Pardubice |
505,285 |
513,949 |
| M |
(Olomoucký kraj) |
Olomouc |
635,126 |
641,897 |
| T |
(Moravskoslezský kraj) |
Ostrava |
1,257,554 |
1,250,066 |
| B |
(Jihomoravský kraj) |
Brno |
1,123,201 |
1,143,389 |
| Z |
(Zlínský kraj) |
Zlín |
590,706 |
591,026 |
| J |
(Vysočina) |
Jihlava |
517,153 |
514,470 |
Economy
The Czech Republic possesses a developed,
high-income economy with a
GDP per capita of 82% of the European Union average. One of the
most stable and prosperous of the post-Communist states, the Czech
Republic has seen a growth of over 6% annually in the last three
years.
Recent growth has been led by exports to the
European Union, especially Germany and foreign
investment, while domestic demand is reviving.
Most of the economy has been privatised, including the banks and
telecommunications. The current centre-right government plans to
continue with privatisation, including the energy industry and the
Prague airport. It has recently agreed to the sale of a 7% stake in
the energy producer,
CEZ Group, with the
sale of the
Budějovický
Budvar brewery also mooted.
The country has fully implemented the
Schengen Agreement and therefore, has
abolished border controls, completely opening its borders with all
of its neighbours, Germany, Austria, Poland and Slovakia, on
December 21, 2007. The Czech Republic became a member of the
World Trade
Organisation.
The last Czech government led by social democrats had expressed a
desire to adopt the
euro in 2010, but the
current centre-right government suspended that plan in 2007. An
exact date has not been set up, but the Finance Ministry described
adoption by 2012 as realistic, if public finance reform passes.
However, the most recent draft of the euro adoption plan omits
giving any date. Although the country is economically better
positioned than other EU Members to adopt the euro, the change is
not expected before 2013, due to political reluctance on the
matter. On January 1, 2009, former Czech PM,
Mirek Topolánek, declared that on
November 1, 2009, the Czech government will announce a fixed date
for euro adoption, since the country "currently fulfils all
criteria for adoption of the euro", however his subsequent
deposition has rendered this deadline moot. There are several
challenges, however. The rate of corruption remains one of the
highest among the other developed
OECD
countries and the public budgets remain in deficit despite strong
growth of the economy in recent years. However, the 2007 deficit
has been 1.58% GDP and the 2008 deficit is expected at 1.2% GDP,
according to
EU accounting rules, far better than original
projections.
The
Programme for
International Student Assessment, coordinated by the
OECD,
currently ranks the Czech education system as the 15th best in the
world, higher than the OECD average.
Infrastructure
Czech motorway system
Ruzyně
International Airport
is the main international airport in the
country. In 2007, it handled 12.4 million passengers, which
makes it one of the busiest airports in Central Europe. In total,
Czech Republic has 46 airports with paved runways, six of which
provide international air services.
České dráhy is the main
railway operator in the Czech Republic, with about 180 million
passengers carried yearly. Its cargo division, ČD Cargo, is the
fifth largest railway cargo operator in the European Union.
In 2005, according to the Czech Statistical Office, 65.4% of
electricity was produced in steam, combined and combustion power
plants (mostly coal); 30% in
nuclear
plants; and 4.6% from renewable sources, including hydropower.
Russia, via pipelines through Ukraine and to a lesser extent,
Norway, via pipelines through Germany, supply the Czech Republic
with liquid and natural gas.
The Czech Republic is reducing its dependence on highly polluting
low-grade
brown coal as a source of energy.
Nuclear energy presently provides
about 30% of the total power needs, its share is projected to
increase to 40%.
Natural gas is
procured from Russian
Gazprom, roughly
three-fourths of domestic consumption and from Norwegian
companies, which make up most of the remaining
one-fourth. Russian gas is imported via Ukraine
(Druzhba pipeline), Norwegian gas
is transported through Germany. Gas
consumption (approx. 100 TWh in 2003–2005) is almost two times
higher than the electricity consumption. South Moravia has small
oil and gas
deposits.
Internet
The Czech Republic has the most Wi-Fi subscribers in the European
Union. By the beginning of 2008, there was over 800 mostly local
WISPs, with about 350,000 subscribers in 2007. Mobile internet is
quite popular. Plans based on either
GPRS,
EDGE,
UMTS or
CDMA2000 are being offered by all three mobile
phone operators (
T-Mobile,
Vodafone,
Telefonica
O2) and U:fon. Government-owned Český Telecom slowed down
broadband penetration. At the beginning of 2004,
local-loop unbundling began and
alternative operators started to offer ADSL and also SDSL. This and
later privatisation of Český Telecom helped drive down prices. On
July 1, 2006, Český Telecom was acquired by globalized company
(Spain owned) Telefonica group and adopted new name
Telefónica O2 Czech
Republic. As of January 2006, ADSL2+ is offered in many
variants, both with data limit and without with speeds up to 10
Mbit/s. Cable internet is gaining popularity with its higher
download speeds beginning at 2 Mbit/s up to 100 Mbit/s.
The
largest ISP, UPC (which recently acquired another CATV internet
provider Karneval in 2007), provides its service in the cities of
Prague, Brno and
Ostrava.
Tourism
The Czech economy gets a substantial income from tourism. In 2001,
the total earnings from tourism reached 118.13 billion
CZK, making up 5.5% of
GNP and 9.3% of
overall export earnings. The industry employs more than 110,000
people – over 1% of the population.
In 2008, however, there was a slump in
tourist numbers in Prague, possibly
due to the strong Czech koruna making the country too expensive for
visitors, compared to the level of services that were
available. The country's reputation has also suffered with
guidebooks and tourists reporting overcharging by taxi drivers and
pickpocketing problems. Since 2005, Prague's mayor,
Pavel Bém, has worked to improve this
reputation by cracking down on petty crime and, aside from these
problems, Prague is a relatively safe city; most areas are safe to
walk around even after dark. Also, the Czech Republic as a whole
generally has a low crime rate.
There are several centres of tourist activity. The historic city of
Prague is the primary tourist attraction, as the city is also the
most common point of entry for tourists visiting other parts of the
country.
Most other cities in the country attract
significant numbers of tourists, but the spa towns, such as
Karlovy
Vary, Mariánské Lázně
and Františkovy Lázně
, are particularly popular holiday
destinations. Other popular tourist sites are the many
castles and chateaux, such as those at Karlštejn Castle
, Český Krumlov
and the Lednice–Valtice area
. Away from the towns, areas such as Český
ráj
, Šumava
and the
Krkonoše
Mountains attract
visitors seeking outdoor pursuits.
The country is also famous for its love of
puppetry and
marionettes
with a number of puppet
festivals
throughout the country.
The Pilsener style
beer originated in western Bohemian city of
Plzeň, and
further south the town of Budweis
lent its name to its beer, eventually known as
Budweiser Bier
Bürgerbräu thus Budweiser.
Culture
Cuisine
Czech cuisine is marked by a strong emphasis on meat dishes. Pork
is quite common; beef and chicken are also popular. Goose, duck,
rabbit and wild game are served. Fish is rare, with the occasional
exception of fresh trout and
carp, which is
served at Christmas.
Aside from
Slivovitz,
Czech beer and
wine,
Czechs also produce two uniquely Czech liquors,
Fernet Stock and
Becherovka.
Kofola is a
non-alcoholic domestic
cola soft drink which competes with
Coca Cola and
Pepsi in
popularity.
Sport
Sport plays a part in the life of many
Czechs, who are generally loyal supporters of their
favourite teams or individuals. The two leading sports in the Czech
Republic are
football (soccer)
and
ice hockey, both drawing the largest
attention of both the media and supporters.
Tennis is also a very big sport in the Czech
Republic. The many other sports with professional leagues and
structures include
basketball,
volleyball,
team
handball,
track and field
athletics and
floorball.
Sport is a source of strong waves of
patriotism, usually rising several days or weeks
before an event and sinking several days after. The events
considered the most important by Czech fans are: the
Ice Hockey World
Championships, Olympic Ice hockey tournament,
UEFA European Football
Championship,
FIFA World Cup and
qualification matches for such events.
In
general, any international match of the Czech ice hockey or
football national team draws attention, especially when played
against a traditional rival: Germany in football;
Russia, Sweden
and
Canada
in ice
hockey; and Slovakia in both.
Sciences
The Czech Republic has a rich scientific tradition. From the
invention of the modern
contact lens
and separation of modern
blood types, to
the production of the
Semtex plastic
explosive, the world owes much of its scientific insight to
prominent Czech scientists, including:
- Jan Amos Komenský (1592 –
1670), educator and national hero, often considered the founder of
modern education for his work in pedagogy.
- Václav Prokop
Diviš (1698 – 1765), inventor of the lightning rod; independently of Benjamin Franklin
- Bernard Bolzano (1781 – 1848),
noted mathematician, logician, philosopher, and pacifist.
- Josef Ressel (1793 – 1857),
inventor of the screw propeller.
- Gregor Mendel (1822 – 1884), often
called the "father of genetics",
is famed for his research concerning the inheritance of genetic
traits.
- Bedřich Hrozný (1879 –
1952), deciphered the Hittite
language.
- Jaroslav Heyrovský (1890
– 1967), first Czech Nobel Prize
laureate, awarded the prize in 1959 for pioneering research in
polarography and electroanalytical chemistry.
- Otto Wichterle (1913 – 1998) and
Drahoslav Lím (1925 – 2003),
Czech chemists responsible for the invention
of the modern contact lens.
A number of other scientists are also connected in some way with
the Czech Lands, including astronomers
Johannes Kepler and
Tycho Brahe, the founder of the
psychoanalytic school of psychiatry
Sigmund Freud, physicists
Ernst Mach,
Albert
Einstein and logician
Kurt
Gödel.
Music
Music in the Czech Republic has its roots both in high-culture
opera and symphony and in the
traditional music of
Bohemia and
Moravia.
Cross-pollination and diversity are important aspects of Czech
music. Composers were often influenced by traditional music; jazz
and bluegrass music have become popular; pop music partially
consisted of English language hits sung in Czech (mostly in years
1960–1989). Notable Czech composers include
Leoš Janáček,
Antonín Dvořák,
Bohuslav Martinů, and
Bedřich Smetana. Great classical
composers such as
Ludwig van
Beethoven and
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart are also linked closely to the Czech Republic
throughout the period of the
Habsburg
Empire.
Literature
Czech literature is the literature of the historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia and the
Czech-speaking part of Silesia, (now part of
the Czech Republic, formerly of Czechoslovakia). This most often means literature written
by
Czechs, in the
Czech language, although
Old Church Slavonic,
Latin and
German were
also used, mostly in the early periods. Modern authors from the
Czech territory, who wrote in other languages (e.g. German), are
generally considered separately and their writing usually existed
in parallel with Czech-language literature and did not interact
with it. Thus
Franz Kafka, for example,
who wrote in German (though he also knew Czech rather well), falls
within
Austrian literature,
though he lived his entire life in Bohemia.
Czech literature is divided into several main time periods: the
Middle Ages; the Hussite period; the years of re-Catholicization
and the baroque; the Enlightenment and Czech reawakening in the
19th century; the avantgarde of the interwar period; the years
under Communism and the Prague Spring; and the literature of the
post-Communist Czech Republic. Czech literature and culture played
a major role on at least two occasions, when Czech society lived
under oppression and no political activity was possible. On both of
these occasions, in the early 19th century and then again in the
1960s, the Czechs used their cultural and literary effort to create
political freedom, establishing a confident, politically aware
nation.
Theatre
Theatre of the Czech
Republic has rich tradition with roots in the Middle Ages. In
the 19th century, the theatre played an important role in the
national awakening movement and later, in the 20th century it
became a part of the modern European theatre art.
International rankings
See also
References
- Emperor Charles IV elected Greatest Czech of all time,
Radio Prague
- Oxford English
Dictionary, second edition, Oxford University Press, 1989.
- http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/gegn23wp48.pdf
- (in Czech)
- Statistics of the Human Development Report.
- Oxford English Dictionary
- The Přemyslid Dynasty - Czech republic
- The
Annals of Jan Dlugosz
- The rise and fall of the Przemyslid Dynasty
- The flowering and the decline of the Czech medieval
state
- The Thirty Years' War - Czech republic,
www.czech.cz
- RP's History Online - Habsburgs
- Lánové rejstříky (1656 - 1711) (in Czech)
- Radio Praha - zprávy (in Czech)
- Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler's
Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939 (Chicago, 1980), pp.
470–481.
- The Annals of the Great Patriotic War Reflected in War
Memorials
- Czech schools revisit communism. BBC News.
November 1, 2005.
- Czech Statistic Office
- The History and Origin of the Roma
- British Immigration Aides Accused of Bias by
Gypsies
- Number of foreigners in the CR, Czech
Statistical Office, 31 October 2008
- The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia
- The Virtual Jewish Library - Jewish population
of Czech republic, 2005
- Crisis Strands Vietnamese Workers in a Czech
Limbo. The New York Times. June 5, 2009.
- Czechs and Bohemians. Encyclopedia of Chicago.
- Czech and Slovak roots in Vienna.
Wieninternational.at
- The Economist: Czechs with few mates
- The death of the districts, Radio Prague January 3,
2003.
- Getting to know Czech Republic, from Czech.cz, the official
site of the Czech Republic
- World Bank 2007
- OECD.org
- 2007 WiFi survey EN
- openspectrum.info - Czech Republic
- Prague sees significant dip in tourist numbers
- Prague mayor goes undercover to expose the great
taxi rip-off, January 15, 2005
- Tips on Staying Safe in Prague,
myczechrepublic.com
- Czech Republic - Country Specific Information,
U.S. Department of State
- Czech.cz - Ingenious inventions. Retrieved 3
March 2009.
- The History of Contact Lenses. Retrieved 3
March 2009.
- Some of the material comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003
U.S. Department of State website.
External links
- Government
- General information
- News
- Statistics
- Photos
- Travelling
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