60 Fun Facts About Czech Republic

The landlocked Czech Republic borders Germany, Slovakia and which two other countries?

Austria and Poland: Austria lies along the southern border and Poland along the north-east, with Germany to the west and north-west and Slovakia to the east.

By what short name did the Czech foreign ministry recommend the country be called in English?

Czechia was registered with the United Nations as the official short name in 2016; the EU, NATO and Google Maps adopted it, while 'Czech Republic' remained in common use.

The peaceful 1993 split of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia is nicknamed what?

The Velvet Divorce took effect on 1 January 1993, dissolving the federation by agreement between Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar without a referendum.

The 1989 events that ended communist rule in the country are known as what?

The Velvet Revolution began with a student march on 17 November 1989; within six weeks the Communist Party had surrendered its monopoly on power.

Which playwright and dissident became the first president of the Czech Republic?

Václav Havel, jailed under the communists for his dissident writing, was Czechoslovakia's last president from 1989 and the Czech Republic's first from 1993; Prague's airport was renamed for him in 2012.

The Czech Republic holds which world record related to beer?

Highest consumption per person: Czechs drank well over 120 litres of beer each per year through the 2010s and led the world ranking for decades from the early 1990s.

The world's first pale lager was brewed in 1842 in which Czech city?

Plzeň: the Burghers' Brewery there produced Pilsner Urquell in October 1842, the golden lager copied so widely that 'pils' became a style; Asahi bought the brewery in 2017.

The Czech brewery Budweiser Budvar has fought a century-long trademark battle with which company?

Anheuser-Busch, the American maker of Budweiser, has contested the name since the early 1900s; the Czech beer is therefore sold as Czechvar in the United States and Canada.

The country is traditionally divided into three historical lands: Bohemia, Moravia and which other?

Czech Silesia, the region around Opava in the north-east, is the small southern fringe of historic Silesia, most of which lies across the northern border.

The word 'robot' was introduced to the world by which Czech writer's 1920 play R.U.R.?

Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. premiered in 1921; the word comes from robota, forced labour, and Čapek credited his brother Josef, a painter, with suggesting it.

The 1618 Defenestration of Prague, in which two royal governors were thrown from a window, sparked which war?

The Thirty Years' War began with this Bohemian revolt against Habsburg rule; the Protestant rebels' defeat at White Mountain in 1620 followed, and the wider war ran until 1648.

The victims of the 1618 defenestration survived a fall of roughly how far?

21 metres, about 70 feet, from a window of the Bohemian Chancellery in Prague Castle; Catholics credited angels, while Protestants said the men landed on a dung heap.

Charles University, the first university in Central Europe, was founded in which year?

1348: Charles IV, King of Bohemia, founded it by charter on 7 April that year; it was the first university in Central Europe, and its oldest college, the Carolinum, dates from 1366.

Charles Bridge in Prague crosses which river?

Vltava, also known as the Moldau, is the country's longest river; the stone bridge begun under Charles IV in 1357 was Prague's only crossing until 1841.

The mechanical clock and astronomical dial of Prague's Orloj date to which year?

It was built by clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň and mathematician Jan Šindel, and first recorded on 9 October 1410.

Per Guinness World Records, the hilltop seat of Czech presidents in Prague is the world's largest what?

Ancient castle is the Guinness category: Prague Castle, begun around 880, covers almost 70,000 square metres and stretches about 570 metres from end to end.

The 1968 Prague Spring was crushed by an invasion of forces from which alliance?

The Warsaw Pact: on the night of 20–21 August 1968 Soviet-led troops, with Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian units, occupied Czechoslovakia and ended Alexander Dubček's reforms.

Czechoslovakia added a blue triangle to its flag in 1920 because the white-over-red design matched which country's?

Poland's flag is the same white-over-red bicolour, so Czechoslovakia added the blue wedge in 1920; the Czech Republic kept that flag after the 1993 split.

What is the currency of the Czech Republic?

Koruna, the Czech crown (CZK), replaced the Czechoslovak koruna in 1993; under its EU accession treaty the country committed to adopting the euro without a fixed date.

The country's highest peak, Sněžka, rises to about what height?

1,603 m: Sněžka, in the Krkonoše or Giant Mountains on the northern border, has a summit weather station and a chapel of St Lawrence completed in 1681.

Under the Treaty of Versailles, Czechoslovakia got a 99-year lease on docks in which port city?

Hamburg: the 30,000-square-metre Moldauhafen plot on the Elbe was leased to Czechoslovakia for 99 years from 1929 under Article 363 of the Treaty of Versailles, running to 2028.

The Czech Republic joined the European Union in which year?

2004: the Czech Republic joined the EU on 1 May that year in the bloc's largest single enlargement, having entered NATO on 12 March 1999.

Which Moravian city is home to Palacký University, founded in 1573 as the country's second oldest?

Olomouc, the historic capital of Moravia, gained its university in 1573; the city also has a UNESCO-listed Holy Trinity Column completed in 1754.

Which composer wrote the 'New World' Symphony while directing a conservatory in New York?

Antonín Dvořák directed the National Conservatory in New York from 1892 to 1895, writing the symphony in 1893 and his 'American' quartet that summer in Spillville, Iowa.

Smetana's symphonic cycle Má vlast has a title meaning what?

My Fatherland, also rendered My Homeland or My Country, is a set of six symphonic poems written between 1874 and 1879; the first, Vyšehrad, evokes the old castle rock above Prague.

The author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial was born in Prague in 1883 and wrote in which language?

Franz Kafka came from a German-speaking Jewish family in what was then the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, went into exile in which country in 1975?

France: Kundera settled in Rennes and then Paris in 1975, lost his Czechoslovak citizenship in 1979, became French in 1981 and regained Czech citizenship in 2019.

Czech-born Martina Navratilova holds the record for Wimbledon singles titles with how many?

Nine: she won Wimbledon in 1978 and 1979, six straight from 1982 to 1987, and a ninth in 1990, breaking Helen Wills Moody's record of eight.

Emil Zátopek is the only person to win which three events at a single Olympics, in Helsinki in 1952?

5,000 m, 10,000 m and marathon: Zátopek won all three at Helsinki 1952, entering the marathon at the last minute despite never having run one before.

Věra Čáslavská was the first gymnast to achieve what across her Olympic career?

Won Olympic gold in every individual event: all-around, vault and beam at Tokyo 1964, plus bars and floor at Mexico City 1968, for seven individual golds in all.

The Sedlec Ossuary near Kutná Hora is decorated with the bones of roughly how many people?

40,000 to 70,000 people's bones, many from plague burials and 15th-century wars, were arranged by woodcarver František Rint in 1870, including a chandelier said to contain every bone in the body.

Gregor Mendel carried out his pea-plant genetics experiments at an abbey in which Czech city?

Brno, the country's second-largest city, is home to the Augustinian St Thomas's Abbey where Mendel worked from the 1850s, and to the modernist Villa Tugendhat.

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Freiberg, a Moravian town now known as what?

Příbor, in the Moravian-Silesian region, was Freiberg in Mähren under Habsburg rule; Freud's birthplace there is a small museum, and the family moved to Vienna in 1860.

Czech chemist Otto Wichterle is best known for inventing what?

Soft contact lenses: Wichterle cast the first hydrogel lenses in 1961 on a home-built rig made from a children's Merkur construction kit and a bicycle dynamo.

The plastic explosive Semtex takes its name from what?

A suburb of Pardubice called Semtín gives the first syllable, combined with Explosia, the manufacturer; Stanislav Brebera developed the explosive there in the late 1950s.

The car maker Škoda, headquartered in Mladá Boleslav, has been wholly owned since 2000 by which group?

Volkswagen took a minority stake in 1991, shortly after the fall of communism, and raised it to 100 percent in 2000; the firm itself descends from Laurin & Klement, founded in 1895.

The real 'Good King Wenceslas', a tenth-century duke of Bohemia, was killed by whom?

His younger brother Boleslaus, later called the Cruel, had him killed at Stará Boleslav around 935 and took the throne; Wenceslaus became the patron saint of the Czech lands.

The followers of which reformer defeated five crusades in Bohemia between 1419 and 1434?

Jan Hus, burned at the stake in Constance in 1415, inspired the Hussites, whose armies under Jan Žižka and Prokop the Great beat five papal crusades between 1420 and 1431.

The 1938 agreement that let Nazi Germany annex the Czech borderlands was signed in which city?

Munich: the agreement of 30 September 1938, signed by Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier without Czechoslovak participation, ceded the Sudetenland; the rest became the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939.

Vladimír Remek, a Czechoslovak cosmonaut, was the first person in space from outside which two nations?

The Soviet Union and the United States were the only nations to have sent people into space before Remek flew on Soyuz 28 to the Salyut 6 station in March 1978 under Interkosmos.

The name Bohemia is traditionally traced to which people, who lived there before the Slavs?

Boii, a Gallic tribe: the Celtic Boii occupied the region in the last centuries BC, and the Latin Boiohaemum, 'home of the Boii', became Bohemia; Slavs arrived in the sixth century.

Vepřo-knedlo-zelo, often called the most typical Czech dish, is roast pork with cabbage and what?

Bread dumplings, knedlíky, are made from a yeasted flour dough, steamed or boiled in a loaf and sliced; leftovers get pan-fried with eggs.

Becherovka, the herbal bitters drunk as a digestif, is produced in which spa town?

Karlovy Vary, known abroad as Karlsbad, is the country's most visited spa, famed for its hot springs and international film festival; Becherovka has been made there since 1807.

Kofola is a Czech domestic version of what?

Cola: Kofola was developed in 1960 as a communist-era substitute for Western colas, using a herbal syrup called Kofo, and kept a loyal following after 1989.

Miloš Forman won Best Director Oscars for Amadeus and which other film?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest won Forman the Best Director Oscar in 1976, almost a decade before Amadeus brought his second; both films also won Best Picture.

Art Nouveau artist Alfons Mucha made his name in Paris with theatrical posters for which actress?

Sarah Bernhardt: Mucha's poster for her play Gismonda, rushed out at the end of 1894, won him a six-year contract with the actress; he later spent years on The Slav Epic.

In Jewish folklore, the golem linked to a 16th-century Prague rabbi is a being made from what?

Clay or mud from the riverbank, shaped and animated by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in the legend to protect Prague's Jews; its remains are said to lie in the Old New Synagogue's attic.

From 2022 the Czech Republic took in about half a million refugees from which country?

Ukraine: after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 the Czech Republic granted temporary protection to several hundred thousand Ukrainians, the most per head of any EU state.

Ottokar II, King of Bohemia, granted brewing rights in 1265 to which town, later famous for its lager?

České Budějovice, Budweis to its Austrian and Bavarian neighbours, gave Budweiser its name; the town's Budvar brewery was founded in 1895 by Czech brewers.

Which fish, traditionally sold live from street tubs, is the Czech Christmas Eve dinner?

Carp, fried in breadcrumbs and served with potato salad, is the traditional Czech Christmas Eve meal; live carp are sold from tubs on the streets in the days before.

Interwar Czechoslovakia held what distinction among Central and Eastern European states?

Only one to stay a parliamentary democracy throughout: while its neighbours slid into authoritarian or royal dictatorships, Czechoslovakia kept free elections and a functioning parliament from 1918 until the 1938 crisis.

In 1806 the Bohemian Crown lands became part of the Austrian realm after the dissolution of what?

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in August 1806 when Francis II abdicated under pressure from Napoleon; he had already proclaimed himself Emperor of Austria in 1804, and the Bohemian lands stayed Habsburg until 1918.

Water from the Czech Republic drains into which three seas?

North, Baltic and Black: the Elbe carries Bohemian waters to the North Sea, the Oder flows from the north-east to the Baltic, and the Morava joins the Danube on its way to the Black Sea.

How many national parks does the Czech Republic have?

Four: Krkonoše, declared in 1963, is the oldest; Šumava and Podyjí followed in 1991 and Bohemian Switzerland in 2000.

Since 2000 the Czech Republic has been divided into how many regions plus the capital, Prague?

13 self-governing regions, kraje, were created by the reform that took effect in 2000, alongside Prague as a region in its own right; the country also has more than 6,000 municipalities.

Which Czech company is the world's largest manufacturer of vinyl records?

GZ Media, at Loděnice near Beroun, has pressed vinyl since 1951 and grew to press tens of millions of records a year during the vinyl revival of the 2010s.

The 1934 Tatra 77 is regarded as the first series-produced car of which kind?

Streamlined aerodynamic car: designed by Hans Ledwinka on Paul Jaray's teardrop principles, the Tatra 77 carried an air-cooled V8 at the rear and a long dorsal fin.

Which nuclear plant is the Czech Republic's largest source of electricity?

Temelín, in South Bohemia, runs two Soviet-designed VVER-1000 reactors commissioned in 2002 and 2003, giving it more capacity than the older, smaller VVER-440 units at Dukovany.

Which Czech scientist is credited with inventing the sugar cube?

Jakub Kryštof Rad, director of the sugar refinery at Dačice, patented the sugar cube in 1843 after his wife cut her finger chopping a sugar loaf.

The Czech ice hockey team won three straight World Championships in which years?

1999 to 2001: the Czechs won three consecutive finals, two of them against Finland in overtime, a run that followed the 1998 Olympic gold in Nagano.