Czech lands

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"The Czech lands" (in Czech: české země) is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic.

What is now the Czech Republic was part of the Habsburg Empire until 1918, then was incorporated into the state of Czechoslovakia. In 1969, Czechoslovakia adopted a federal constitution and split into the Czech and Slovak federal republics. The creation of the separate republics established the first defined borders for the homeland of the Czech people. Historians use the term "the Czech lands" to describe that homeland before 1969.

The term "Czech lands" has been used to describe different things by different people. Some sources use the term to mean any territory under the Bohemian (or "Czech") crown. This would include territories like Lusatia and Brandenburg (now in Germany) and the balance of Silesia, all of which were ruled from Prague at one time. Most Czech historical texts use the term in this manner when discussing the Middle Ages. Other sources use the term to refer only to the core Czech areas of Bohemia, Moravia and the former Austrian Silesia. For many topics, a distinction between the two definitions is not necessary, as the Czech lands have been more-or-less co-extensive with the modern-day Czech Republic since the 18th century.

[edit] Alternate names

Main article: Names of the Czech Republic

The non-auxiliary term (i.e. the term used in official Czech geographical and linguistic terminology lists) for the "Czech" part of the Czech lands (i.e. Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia) is Czechia (in Czech: Česko). Today, it is also the official short form for the "Czech Republic". The term Czechia, which was codified as early as in 1777 in the Czech language, is also the term officially preferred by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1993. The Czech government increasingly uses the term in English-language documents. However, the term has not caught on among English speakers. The officially preferred Czech-language short form name of the country, Česko, has likewise run into temporary resistance from Czech speakers but has more recently caught on with many natives.