Czechia is a landlocked country situated in the heart of Europe. It is a more precise expression than speaking of Czechia as of a country in the middle of Europe... after all, the heart is not to be found precisely at the center of human body either. :-)
Facts and figures
Official name: Czechia, Czech Republic
Location: Central Europe
Language: Czech
Area: 78,866 sq km
Neighbours: Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia
Currency: Czech Crown / CZK
Population: 10.66 million
Capital: Praha / Prague (1.3 million)
Other major cities: Brno (385,000), Ostrava (303,000), Plzeň (170,000), Liberec (102,000), Olomouc (100,000)
Distance from Prague to: Vienna (300 km), Berlin (350 km), Warsaw (600 km), Budapest (500 km), Paris (1,000 km), London (1,000 km), Rome (1,200 km), Oslo (1,300 km)
Flight times from Prague to: Vienna (50 min), Berlin (50 min), Warsaw (1h 15 min), Budapest (1h 15 min), Paris (1h 35 min), London (1h 50 min), Rome (1h 50 min), Oslo (2 h)
Political system: parliamentary republic, bicameral parliamentary system with 281 representatives
Head of state: president
Membership: European Union, Schengen Area, NATO, OECD, WTO
Religion: every citizen enjoys freedom of religion, more than 50 % of the population describe themselves as agnostic or atheist
Climate: seasonal variations with warm summers, chilly autumns and cold winters
Average temperatures: January -4 °C; July 24 °C
Czech inventions: sugar cubes, contact lenses, semtex, fingerprints, cell theory, blood type classification, the word "robot", polarography, arc lamp, lightening conductor, ship's propeller and more
Famous Czechs: Charles IV. (Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia), John Amos Comenius (Jan Ámos Komenský - father of modern education), Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1st president of Czechoslovakia, 1918), Václav Havel (dissident, 1st Czech president), Sigmund Freud (founder of psychoanalysis), Gregor Mendel (founder of the modern science of genetics), Jan Evangelista Purkyně (biologist), Madeleine Albright (politician), Franz Kafka (writer), Milan Kundera (writer), Jaroslav Hašek (writer), Antonín Dvořák (composer), Leoš Janáček (composer), Bedřich Smetana (composer), Miloš Forman (director), Alfons Mucha (painter) and many more.