Czech lands

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The "Czech lands" (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. The Czech lands have been settled by Slavic people since the fifth century.

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^{[citation needed]} (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 eighteenth century.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Alternate names

Main article: Names of the Czech Republic

The non-auxiliary term (i.e. the term used in official Czech geographical 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 Česko is documented as early as in 1777. Česko and its foreign equivalents are also the terms officially preferred by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1993. However, the term Czechia 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.

[edit] References

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v • d • e Historical territories in the contemporary Czech Republic Bohemia Moravia Silesia

v • d • e Timeline of Czechoslovak statehood
Timeline	Origins	1918–1938	World War II (1938–1945)			1945–1948	1948–1989		1989–1992	Dissolution
Czech Lands	areas of the Austro-​Hungarian Empire	First Republic of Czechoslovakia (1918–1938) Full boundaries and government established by the 1920 constitution	Sudetenland annexed by Nazi Germany (1938–1945)			Third Republic of Czechoslovakia (ČSR) (1945–1948)	Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) (1948–1960) Declared a "people's democracy" (without a formal name change) under the Ninth-of-May Constitution	Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) (1960–1990) Including Czech Socialist Republic & Slovak Socialist Republic (1969–1990)	Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (ČSFR) (1990–1992) Including Czech Republic & Slovak Republic	Czech Republic (since 1993)
			Second Republic of Czecho-Slovakia (ČSR) (1938–1939) Including autonomous regions of Slovakia and Carpatho-​Ukraine	Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939–1945)
Slovakia				WWII Slovak Republic (1939–1945)						Slovakia (since 1993)
				Sth. Slovakia and Carpatho-​Ukraine Awarded to  Hungary (1939–1945)
Carpathian Ruthenia						Territories annexed by the Ukrainian SSR (1944/1946–1991)			Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine (since 1991)
			Czechoslovak government-in-exile