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Interesting facts about the Czech Republic

Interesting facts about the Czech Republic

Land and People

  • The Czech Republic is almost entirely surrounded by mountains (except to the south, toward Austria and Slovakia). Mountains mark a natural border with Germany and Poland.
  • 90% of Czechs have completed at least secondary education - the highest score in the EU (along with Poles, Slovaks, and Slovenes).
  • According to the 2021 census, 57.4% of the Czechs are Agnostic, Atheist, or non-believers, an additional 30% without stated religion, 9.3% Roman Catholic and 0.6% Protestant. Less than 15% said that they believed in God, the lowest percentage in Europe.
  • Czech people are the world's heaviest consumers of beer, with a staggering 182 litres consumed by person per year in 2020, nearly twice more than Austrians and Poles, who come 2nd and 3rd in the ranking.
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  • Czech and Slovak languages are mutually intelligible to people accustomed to the other language's pronuciation, particularily people who have lived at the time of Czechoslovakia (the country split in 1993) . The Sorbian languages spoken by a minority of people in south-eastern Germany (Saxony and Brandenburg) are also closely related to Czech language. The relation between these West Slavic languages is a similar to that of Castillan Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Portuguese together.
  • Czech people are mostly of Slavic descent, but many people can also claim partial German ancestry, as a result of the country's 1000 years within the Holy Roman Empire or Austrian Empire.
  • The country is renowned for its numerous spa towns, especially along the border with Saxony (Germany). The most famous ones are those of Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), Františkovy Lázně (Franzensbad) and Teplice (Teplitz).
  • There are over 2,000 castles, keeps, and castle ruins in the Czech Republic, one of the highest density in the world (notably after Belgium and France).
  • One of the most famous Czech sportswoman is tennis champion Martina Navratilova (born in 1956), statistically the second best female player of the 20th century behind Steffi Graf.

Economy & Society

  • The Czech Republic is the second richest country from the former Soviet bloc after tiny Slovenia. Its GDP per capita at PPP in 2021 was higher than that of Japan or Spain, and close to New Zealand and Italy.
  • As of 2019 Prague's GDP per capita (PPP) was 63,900€, making it the third richest region in Europe after Luxembourg and Southern Ireland.
  • Czechia is one of the safest countries in Europe. In 2020 the rate of intentional homicides was at 0.53 per 100,000 people, lower than in Switzerland, Austria or Nordic countries, and less than half that of Britain or France. The feeling of safety reported by users on Numbeo in 2022 was the 4th highest in the EU after Slovenia, Croatia and Estonia, who have a combined population smaller than that of Czechia.
  • Within the EU, part-timers work the longest hours in the Czech Republic (about 24h/week). However, part-time work is very rare in this country.
  • Reporters Without Borders ranked the Czech Republic as the 5th best country in the world (out of 168 countries listed) for freedom of press in 2006, although it has since fallen to the 20th position as of 2022.
  • Czechia is the county with the most KFC restaurants per capita in the European Union - almost as many per inhabitant as in the United States!

History

  • Historically, the Czech Republic was composed of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the March of Moravia, both part of the the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806), then also within the Habsburg Empire (1526-1918).
  • Bohemia was first a duchy in the 9th century, then was elevated to a kingdom in 1198. Most of the early Kings of Bohemia belonged to the powerful House of Luxembourg (from 1310 to 1437) and combined the title of Holy Roman Emperor. The only daughter of Sigismund of Luxembourg married Albert of Habsburg, and the crown of Bohemia subsequently passed to the House of Habsburg, which kept it until the dissolution of their empire in 1918.
  • The Charles University in Prague, founded in 1348, is the oldest university in Eastern Europe, and one of the oldest in the world in continuous operation.
  • Famous Czech people include the religious reformer Jan Hus (1370-1415), the early proponent of universal education John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), the classical music composers Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) and Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), and the German-language author Franz Kafka (1883-1924).
  • A Czech, the chemist Otto Wichterle, invented the soft contact lenses in 1959.
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