CZECH REPUBLIC Official name: Ceska Republika (Czech Republic). (The name of the country in Czech is Cesky, but for some reason this word is never used in English. It is usually translated as "the Czech Lands".) Location: Central Europe International organisations: The Council of Europe, The European Union, The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, The United Nations, The World Trade Organisation

Borders: Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia
Coastline: None
Land area: 78,866 Km2
Population: 10,200,000
Ethnicity: 95% of the population are Czechs, Moravians or Silesians. Although the Constitution recognises these as three separate nationalities, there is no real difference between them. The only significant minority are Slovaks (3.1%)
Languages: Czech is the official language and is universally spoken.
Religion: The Czech Republic is highly secularised. Less than 50% identify as Christian (Catholic 39.2%, Protestant 4.6%, Orthodox 3%).
Form of government: Parliamentary democratic republic. The Czech Republic is divided into 13 regions and the City of Prague
Capital: Prague (Praha)
Constitution: The Constitution of the Czech Republic came into effect on 16 December 1992.
Head of state: The President, chosen by a joint sitting of the two houses of the legislature for a five-year term. The President's functions are largely ceremonial. President Vaclav Klaus assumed office on 7 March 2003.
Head of government: The Prime Minister, appointed by the President. The Prime Minister is the leader of the largest party or coalition in the legislature and is accountable to it.
Legislature: The Czech Republic has a bicameral legislature, the Parliament of the Czech Republic (Parlament Ceské Republiky). The Chamber of Representatives (Poslanecká Sněmovna) has 200 members, elected for four-year terms by proportional representation. The Senate (Senat) has 81 members, elected for six-year terms from single-member constituencies, with one-third being elected every two years.
Electoral authority: The Central Election Commission administers national elections.
Freedom House rating: Political Rights 1, Civil Liberties 1

Political history

The Kingdom of Bohemia, a largely German state, was absorbed into the Habsburg Empire in 1527. The last attempt to reassert Bohemian independence was defeated in 1621. During the 19th century the Slavic Czechs developed a distinct national consciousness, and in the 1890s a political movement for Czech independence developed, led by Jan Masaryk. During the First World War Masaryk offered Czech support to the Allies, and in 1918 when the Habsburg Empire collapsed a Czech and Slovak state was proclaimed. Czechoslovakia was in most respects a model democracy, but the Czech leaders foolishly insisted that the new state should have the same borders as the Kingdom of Bohemia, which included 3 million Germans. They then compounded this error by discrimination against the German minority. Thus when Hitler's regime demanded the annexation of the German-speaking border areas (the Sudentenland) in 1938, the Czechs were unable to resist. Germany occupied the rest of the country in 1939.

Democratic Czechoslovakia was reconstituted in 1945, minus the Germans who were all expelled. But in 1948 the powerful Communist Party staged a coup, and Czechoslovakia became a one-party Communist state for the next 40 years. In 1968 a liberal Czech Communist leader, Alexander Dubcek, tried to reform the system, provoking a Soviet invasion. Communist rule ended only in 1990, when it became clear that the Soviets would no longer intervene.

The "velvet revolution" of 1990 was followed by the "velvet divorce" of 1992 when Slovakia peacefully seceded. The Czech Republic has been the most successful of the former Soviet satellite states in making the transition to a free market economy, thanks mainly to Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister 1992-97, who rapidly privatised the economy and prepared the country for entry to the European Union, scheduled for May 2004.

The Czech Republic has a stable western-type party system. The moderate left-wing Czech Social Democratic Party is currently in office. Also on the left but outside the government is the Communist Party of the Czech Lands and Moravia. The free-market liberals of the Civic Democratic Party are in opposition, along with the smaller Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People's Party and Freedom Union-Democratic Union.