The Country
The Czech Republic is a land of stories and most of them are connected with historical towns and noble residences. Every town has many examples of fort, castle, or ruin chateu or palace.
Castles, chateaux, sixteen UNESCO monuments and historical cities are some of the most popular trip destinations in the Czech Republic.
The first evidence of a Czech state dates back to the early Middle Ages. After 1620, the Czech Lands became part of Austria and then, after 1867, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Following the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War, the Czechs and Slovaks declared independence in 1918 and Czechoslovakia became a sovereign country and during the 1920s and 1930s, it ranked among the ten most developed countries worldwide. The end of the Second World War brought the country under the international communist movement, led by the Soviet Union.
1989 with its Velvet Revolution, initiated by students and intellectuals, brought democratic development to the country. At the beginning of 1993 Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The country is a part of the Schengen area.
Prague, the capital is the largest city with 1.3 million inhabitants. There are 5 other metropolitan cities with a population exceeding 100,000: Brno, Plzeň, Olomouc, Ostrava, and Liberec. The Czech Republic shares borders with Germany, Poland, Austria and Slovakia.
Many important European rivers (Labe, Odra, Morava, Vltava etc.) flow through the country.