Czech Republic

The Czech Republic ( (listen); Czech: Česká republika [ˈtʃɛskaː ˈrɛpublɪka] (listen)), also called by its short-form name, Czechia ( (listen); Czech: Česko [ˈtʃɛsko] (listen)), is a landlocked country in Central Europe bordered by Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The Czech Republic has hilly landscape that covers an area of 78,866 square kilometers (30,450 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate. It is a unitary parliamentary republic. The Duchy of Bohemia under Great Moravia in 1002 was formally recognized as an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire, and became the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy. The Protestant Bohemian Revolt (1618–20) against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Catholicism, and adopted a policy of gradual Germanization. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Crown lands became part of the Austrian Empire, and the Czech (Bohemian) language and literature experienced a cultural revival. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became more industrialized and were part of the First Czechoslovak Republic following the collapse of the Austria-Hungary after World War I. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Nazi Germany systematically took control over the Czech lands. Czechoslovakia was restored in 1945 until 1 January 1993 when it dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic is a member of NATO, EU, OECD, OSCE and CoE. The Czech Republic is a developed country with an advanced, high income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care, and tuition-free university education. It ranks 13th in the UN inequality-adjusted human development and 14th in the World Bank Human Capital Index ahead of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France. It ranks as the 11th safest and most peaceful country and 32nd in democratic governance.