Capital city: Prague Region: Eastern Europe Area: 78 866 km² Population: 10 264 212 Main cities: Brno, Ostrava, Plzen, Olomouc, Usti Nad Labem, Liberec, Hradec Králové, Pardubice, Ceské Budejovice Currency: Czech koruna Dial code: 420 Internet code: EZ Information: Czech Republic (or Czechia) is located in Central Europe. It gathers the regions of Bohemia and Moravia, and part of Silesia. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Germany to the northwest and west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the southeast. The Czech Republic is member of the NATO, and it is member of the European Union since 1st May 2004. The term Czechia appeared in 1993 to designate the Czech Republic, in opposition to Bohemia, which refers to one of its regions. Czech landscape is varied; to the west, Bohemia forms a basin, crossed by the Elbe ('Labe' in Czech) and by the Vltava (Moldau in German), bordered mainly by low mountains such as the sudeten mountains that include the Giant mountains Krkonoše, featuring the highest point of the country culminating at 1602 m. Moravia, to the east, is also mountainous and is watered by the Morava, but it also there that the river Odra (Oder in German) takes its source. Water of Czechia flow to three different seas: the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. |