Portal:Czech Republic

Welcome to the Czech Portal!
Vítejte na Českém portálu!

The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country 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.

The Duchy of Bohemia was founded in the late 9th century under Great Moravia. It was formally recognized as an Imperial Estate of the Holy Roman Empire in 1002 and became a kingdom in 1198. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, all of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy. Nearly a hundred years later, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Crown lands became part of the Austrian Empire.

During the 19th century, the Czech lands underwent significant industrialization. Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary after World War I, most of the region became part of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918. Czechoslovakia was the only country in Central and Eastern Europe to remain a parliamentary democracy during the entirety of the interwar period. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Nazi Germany systematically took control over the Czech lands. Czechoslovakia was restored in 1945 and three years later became an Eastern Bloc communist state following a coup d'état in 1948. Attempts to liberalize the government and economy were suppressed by a Soviet-led invasion of the country during the Prague Spring in 1968. In November 1989, the Velvet Revolution ended communist rule in the country and restored democracy. On 31 December 1992, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced, high-income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care and free-tuition university education. It ranks 32nd in the Human Development Index. The Czech Republic is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. (Full article...)

View new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

Moravia (Czech: Morava [ˈmorava] ^ⓘ; German: Mähren [ˈmɛːʁən] ^ⓘ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.

The medieval and early modern Margraviate of Moravia was a crown land of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1348 to 1918, an imperial state of the Holy Roman Empire from 1004 to 1806, a crown land of the Austrian Empire from 1804 to 1867, and a part of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. Moravia was one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia founded in 1918. In 1928 it was merged with Czech Silesia, and then dissolved in 1948 during the abolition of the land system following the communist coup d'état. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

edit

Selected picture

LET Aircraft Industries operated Let L-410NG (reg. OK-NGA, cn 152820/2820) at ILA Berlin Air Show 2016.

Photographer: Julian Herzog (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)

More pictures...

edit

In this month

2 June 1541 – A fire destroys much of Malá Strana and the northern part of Prague Castle
10 June 1348 – The foundation stone of Karlštejn Castle (pictured) is laid
20 June 1976 – The Czechoslovakia national football team win UEFA Euro 1976
23 June 1955 – The first national Spartakiad is held, marking ten years after the nation's liberation at the end of World War II
30 June 1945 – State security service StB is established

More anniversaries...

edit

Selected biography - show another

Gregor Johann Mendel OSA (/ˈmɛndəl/; German: [ˈmɛndl̩]; Czech: Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (Brünn), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire (today's Czech Republic) and gained posthumous recognition as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. Taking seed color as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred, their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1 green to 3 yellow. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms "recessive" and "dominant" in reference to certain traits. In the preceding example, the green trait, which seems to have vanished in the first filial generation, is recessive, and the yellow is dominant. He published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible "factors"—now called genes—in predictably determining the traits of an organism. The actual genes were only discovered in a long process that ended in 2025 when the last three of the seven Mendel genes were identified in the pea genome. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
John Amos Comenius Petr Čech Dominik Hašek Jaromír Jágr Pavel Nedvěd Tomáš Rosický Franz Kafka Bedřich Smetana Emanuel Moravec Gustav Mahler Fredy Hirsch Antonín Kinský Vlastimil Koubek Petra Kvitová Martin Miller (actor) Vratislav Lokvenc Vladimír Remek Leoš Janáček Libor Michálek Vojtěch Jarník Markéta Vondroušová Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková

edit

Did you know?

... that in 2005 UNESCO proclaimed the Moravian male recruit dance verbuňk as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind?
... that the World War II idea of Polish-Czechoslovakian confederation was eventually discarded by the Czechs, whose leader chose instead to believe in the Soviet Union promises of alliance?
... that footballer Petr Vrabec won six Czechoslovak league titles with Sparta Prague?
... that Josef Jiří Kolár was the first to begin a systematic translation of Shakespeare's plays into Czech?

More did you know facts

Read more...

General images

The following are images from various Czech Republic-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Cubist architecture in Prague (from Czech architecture)
Image 2Emperor Francis Joseph I. (reigned 1848–1916) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 3The extent of the Protestant Reformation (1545–1620) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 4Pilsner Urquell in a branded mug (from Czech cuisine)
Image 5John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), Czech philosopher and school reformer (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 6St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle, John of Luxembourg laid the foundation stone in 1344 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 7The coat of arms of the Přemyslid dynasty (until 1253–1262) (from Bohemia)
Image 8Kačina Castle in Chotkov (from Czech architecture)
Image 9Václav Havel, playwright, dissident and president from 1989 to 2003 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 10Map of protected areas of the Czech Republic: national parks (grey) and protected landscape areas (green) (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 11The First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 12House of the Black Madonna (from Czech architecture)
Image 13Svíčková na smetaně (Marinated tenderloin), served here with dumplings and cream (from Czech cuisine)
Image 14Iconic brutalist Transgas building, demolished in 2019 (from Czech architecture)
Image 15A panorama of Zittau (from Bohemia)
Image 16Zelňačka (from Czech cuisine)
Image 17Municipal House (from Czech architecture)
Image 18Cubist lamp by Emil Králíček, Jungmannovo náměstí, next to the Gothic Church of Our Lady of the Snows (Prague) (from Czech architecture)
Image 19Czech kings Ottokar II, Wenceslas II and Wenceslas III from the Přemyslid dynasty (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 20Vepřo-knedlo-zelo (Roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 21Writer Božena Němcová (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 22Territory under the control of the Přemyslids, c. 1301 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 23Fried cheese, served with tartar sauce and side salad (from Czech cuisine)
Image 24Entrance to Moravian Karst PLA (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 25Empress Maria Theresa (reignet 1740–1780) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 26Semi-detached villa in Brno by Otto Eisler, according to MoMA's Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, is a defining building of the International style. (from Czech architecture)
Image 27Bronze sword, Urnfield culture, c. 1200 BC (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 28Stone sculpture of a Celtic man, found in Mšecké Žehrovice (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 29King George of Podebrady, one of the first promoters of united Europe (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 30Rotunda of St. George from the beginning of the 12th century on Mount Říp (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 31Russian occupation in 1968 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 32The Kingdom of Bohemia in 1618 with other Bohemian Crown lands within the Holy Roman Empire (1618) (from Bohemia)
Image 33Korozluky Castle (from Czech architecture)
Image 34Monument to Master Jan Hus, a religious reformer and philosopher in Prague (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 35Beheading of 27 Bohemian nobles at the Old Town Square in Prague, 1621 (contemporary illustration) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 36Řežabinec a Řežabinecké tůně National Nature Reserve (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 37Library of Clementinum, a former Jesuit College, built in 1722 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 38Linguistic map of interwar Czechoslovakia (c. 1930) (from Bohemia)
Image 39Church of Saint Agnes of Bohemia (Spořilov) (from Czech architecture)
Image 40Bohemia (westernmost area) in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938 (from Bohemia)
Image 41Lands of the Bohemian Crown (until 1635), map by Josef Pekař, 1921 (from Bohemia)
Image 42Christmas cookies (vánoční cukroví) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 43Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, philosopher, Czechoslovak president in the years 1918-1935 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 44Europe after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 45Saint Wenceslas, Czech prince (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 46Nakládaný hermelín (marinated cheese) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 47Monument to the village of Lidice murdered by the Nazis (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 48Adria Palace (Prague) (from Czech architecture)
Image 49Fried bramboráky (potato pancakes) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 50Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the oldest ceramic article in the world (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 51Great Moravia during the reign of Svatopluk I (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 52Emperor and King Charles IV. Luxembourg (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 53Prague-style beef goulash (from Czech cuisine)
Image 54Hroby Nature Monument in Radenín (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 55The radical Hussites became known as Taborites, after the town of Tábor that became their center. (from Bohemia)
Image 56A panorama of Kłodzko, the capital city of Kłodzko Land, which is referred to as "Little Prague" (from Bohemia)
Image 57Vladislaus Hall at the Prague Castle, built from 1490 to 1502 by Benedikt Rejt (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 58Grand Café Orient in Prague (from Czech architecture)
Image 59Frgál, a type of koláč baked in Moravian Wallachia (from Czech cuisine)
Image 60Bohemian city Karlovy Vary (from Bohemia)
Image 61Copper engraving of the Second Defenestration of Prague from Theatrum Europaeum by Matthäus Merian. (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 62Territories ruled by Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1273 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 63A "traditional Bohemian platter" at a restaurant in central Prague, consisting of roast duck, roast pork, beer sausage, smoked meat, red and white cabbage, bread, bacon and potato dumplings (from Czech cuisine)
Image 64Apple strudel with raisins (from Czech cuisine)
Image 65Duchy of Bohemia, around 1029 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 66Baroque St. Nicholas Church in Malá Strana, built between 1704 and 1755 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 67Detailed map of Bohemia, 1742 (from Bohemia)
Image 68The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia (from Bohemia)
Image 69An 1892 map showing Bohemia proper outlined in pink, Moravia in yellow, and Austrian Silesia in orange (from Bohemia)
Image 70Bohemia as the heart of Europa regina; Sebastian Münster, Basel, 1570 (from Bohemia)
Image 71The National Theater from 1881 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 72Svíčková na smetaně served with dumplings, whipped cream and cranberries (from Czech cuisine)
Image 73Dacian Influence over Bohemia (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 74Obložené chlebíčky, a type of snack or appetizer (from Czech cuisine)
Image 75Buděticko Nature Park with Rabí Castle (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)

Related portals

edit

Topics

Czech lands: Bohemia • Moravia • Czech Silesia

History: Únětice culture • Boii • Marcomanni • Samo • Great Moravia • Přemyslid dynasty • Lands of the Bohemian Crown • Czech lands (1526–1648) • 1648–1867 • 1867–1918) • Czechoslovakia • Czech Republic

Geography: Lakes • Protected areas • Regions • Rivers

Law: Judiciary • Law enforcement • Supreme Court of the Czech Republic

Politics: Administrative divisions • Government • Constitution • Elections • Foreign relations • Army • Parliament • Political parties • President • Prime Minister

Economy: Banks • Czech koruna • Energy • Oil and gas deposits • Stock Exchange • Tourism • Transport

Culture: Architecture • Art • Cinema • Cuisine • Demographics • Education • Language • Literature • Media • Music • Philosophy • Prostitution • Public holidays • Religion • Sport • Television • Video games

Symbols: Flag • Coat of arms • National anthem (Kde domov můj)

Lists: Outline of the Czech Republic • List of Czech Republic–related topics

edit

WikiProjects

WikiProject Czech Republic

WikiProject Europe

edit

Featured and good content

	Featured articles		Dominik Hašek • Earth-grazing meteoroid of 13 October 1990 • Franz Kafka • Gustav Mahler • Bedřich Smetana • The Bartered Bride
	Good articles		Patrik Berger • FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 • Reinhard Heydrich • Leoš Janáček • Vlastimil Koubek • Libor Michálek • Pavel Nedvěd • Panzer 35(t) • Polish minority in the Czech Republic • Prague Spring • Punch-up in Piestany • Randy Blythe manslaughter case • The Brothers Grimm (film) • Winton Train • Zaolzie