• The Czech Republic is a landlocked country.
• The highest point is Snezka at 5,256 feet high.
• Prague is the capital city.
• Prague is home to the largest ancient castle in the world called the Prague Castle.
• The official language is Czech, but Slavic is considered a minority language.
• Czech and Slavic are so similar that speakers of each language can usually understand each other.
• The most popular sport is ice hockey.
• There are more than 2,000 castles and castle ruins in the Czech Republic.
• The Czech Republic is surrounded by mountains.
• The Czech Republic makes a lot of its money from tourism.
• Charles University in Prague is the oldest university in Eastern Europe.
• It was founded in 1348.
• The sugar cube was invented here in 1843.
• The national flag is red, blue and white.
• Czechs love mushroom hunting in local forests.
• The currency is the Koruna.
The Czech Republic is a small nation in central Europe. The Czech people have been part of many different nations since the land was first inhabited by Slavic tribes in the 10th century. After World War I, the Czechs and Slovaks came together in hopes of forming a more powerful nation: Czechoslovakia. The nation was occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, but was liberated by Soviet and American forces in 1945. Eventually, the union between the Czechs and Slovaks dissolved into two different nations on Jan. 1, 1993. Czechoslovakia became the independent nations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Czech Republic has given the world some of the most amazing scientists, inventors and artists in all human history. One such scientist is Gregor Mendel the father of modern genetics. While many people identify him as Austrian, Mendel was actually born in 1822 in what is now the Czech Republic. He was a monk. While he lived in the monastery, he used pea plants to study heredity. This is how the parents’ DNA combines during reproduction to create the next generation of plants. His work was revolutionary and because of his efforts, scientists today can do amazing things with genetics and DNA. For example, they can use DNA to predict diseases or catch criminals.
