Where's Czechoslovakia?
Posted by Margarete on 14 July 2008
Many people—including a lot of Americans—don’t know that Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist. Since most adults learn their basic geography in elementary school and have had little reason to revisit geography lessons after that, for my fellow Americans I would say most have a vague idea that there is a country called Czechoslovakia but don’t know how it relates to the Czech and Slovak Republics.
With all the potential confusion I thought I’d provide a few basic facts.
- Czechoslovakia existed from 1918 to 1939 and then from 1945 until 1992. During WWII, the Czech lands were part of Nazi Germany and Slovakia was independent.
- Though borders did change slightly over the years, the map to the right shows where Czechoslovakia was until the end in 1992.
- Czechoslovakia was made up of the following regions: Bohemia and Moravia-Silesia combined to form the Czech lands in the west, and Slovakia (with Subcarpathian Rus until 1939) comprised the land in the east. Subcarpathian Rus, sometimes also referred to as Ruthenia, is now a part of Ukraine.
- On January 1, 1993 the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic (also called Slovakia though not to be confused with Slovenia) declared their separate independence. The reasons for the peaceful split were numerous but in the end it wasn’t the people who decided but the politicians. At first Czechs and Slovaks were apprehensive about the split but nowadays there are relatively few who would have preferred to stay together.
To read more about Czechoslovakia including details about its history, see the Wikipedia page on Czechoslovakia.
