the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast.

A nation state is a type of state that joins the political entity of a state to the cultural entity of a nation, from which it aims to derive its political legitimacy to rule and potentially its status as a sovereign state.

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south.

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe.

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The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with a mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate.

An oceanic climate is the climate typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, and generally features cool summers and cool but not cold winters, with a relatively narrow annual temperature range and few extremes of temperature, with the exception for transitional areas to continental, subarctic and highland climates.

Continental climates are defined in the Köppen climate classification has having a coldest month mean temperature below -3 C or 0 °C depending on which isotherm used for the coldest month and four months above 10 °C.

Creepiest Places in the Czech Republic by American Eye

It is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents.

A parliamentary republic is a type of republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature.

The Czech Republic includes the historical territories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia.

Czech Silesia is the name given to the part of the historical region of Silesia presently located in the Czech Republic.

The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire.

Great Moravia, the Great Moravian Empire, or simply Moravia, was the first major state that was predominantly Slavonic to emerge in the area of Central Europe.

The Duchy of Bohemia, also referred to as the Czech Duchy, was a monarchy and a principality in Central Europe during the Early and High Middle Ages.

A duchy is a country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess.

After the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty.

The House of Přemyslid or Přemyslid dynasty were a Czech royal dynasty which reigned in Duchy of Bohemia and later Kingdom of Bohemia and Margraviate of Moravia, parts of Hungary, Silesia, Austria and Poland.

In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century.

The Kingdom of Bohemia, sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czech Republic.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806.

Besides Bohemia itself, the king of Bohemia ruled the lands of the Bohemian Crown, he had a vote in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor, and Prague was the imperial seat in periods between the 14th and 17th century.

The Lands of the Bohemian Crown, often called Czech lands in modern times, were a number of incorporated states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods connected by feudal relations under the joint rule of the Bohemian kings.

In the Hussite wars of the 15th century driven by the Protestant Bohemian Reformation, the kingdom faced economic embargoes and defeated five consecutive crusades proclaimed by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were fought between the Hussites and various European monarchs who sought to enforce the authority of the Roman Catholic Church on them; various Hussite factions also confronted each other, especially the Utraquists who opposed remaining Hussite spinoffs alongside Roman Catholics.

The Protestant Reformation, often referred to simply as the Reformation was a schism from the Roman Catholic Church initiated by Martin Luther and continued by John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and other early Protestant Reformers in 16th century Europe.

The Hussites were a Christian movement in the Kingdom of Bohemia following the teachings of Czech reformer Jan Hus, who became the best-known representative of the Bohemian Reformation and one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation.

Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary.

The Habsburg Monarchy or Empire, occasionally also styled as the Danubian Monarchy, is an unofficial appellation among historians for the countries and provinces that were ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg until 1780 and then by the successor branch of Habsburg-Lorraine until 1918.

The Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years' War.

The House of Habsburg, also called House of Hapsburg, or House of Austria, was one of the most influential royal houses of Europe.

After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, eradicated Protestantism and reimposed Roman Catholicism, and also adopted a policy of gradual Germanization.

Germanisation refers to the spread of the German language, people and culture or policies which introduced these changes.

With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Kingdom became part of the Austrian Empire and the Czech language experienced a revival as a consequence of widespread romantic nationalism.

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs.

The Austrian Empire was an empire in Central Europe created out of the realms of the Habsburgs by proclamation in 1804.

Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group.

In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and were subsequently the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, which was formed in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I.

Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire in English-language sources, was a constitutional union of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary that existed from 1867 to 1918, when it collapsed as a result of defeat in World War I. The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867.

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.

The Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, abbreviated to USSR, was a socialist state on the Eurasian continent that existed from 1922 to 1991.

The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war.

The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections.

Following the 1948 coup d'état, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence.

In 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion.

The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II.

The first separate Czech republic was created on January 1, 1969, under the name Czech Socialistic Republic within federalization of Czechoslovakia, however the federalization was implemented only incompletely.