The Czech Republic

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Introduction
The Czech Republic is situated in the centre of Europe and sometimes it’s called „The heart of Europe“. The capital city is Prague and the number of inhabitants is about 10 millions. There are a lot of interesting places like mountains, ponds, national parks and so on. There are also a lot of interesting cities. The most popular is our capital city Prague and then it’s for example Brno, Telč, Plzeň and the others. And not least there are magnificent castles, ruins and chateaux, such as Karlštejn, Prague castle, Hluboká, Bezděz and many others.
Geography, climate
The Czech Republic is land-locked country, it means that we haven’t a border with the sea, but it’s surrounded by other countries – Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. The country consists of three lands: Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Bohemia, a land of rolling hills and plains surrounded by mountains, makes up the western part of the Czech Republic, while the lowlands of Moravia are in the east. Silesia, also a lowland region, lies to the north and stretches into southern Poland. The maximum distance from east to west is 490 km, and the maximum distance from north to south is about 280 km. Mountain ranges border much of the country. A natural border between Bohemia and Moravia is made by the Bohemian-Moravian Highland. The Czech landscape is quite varied. Bohemia to the west consists of a basin, drained by the Elbe, the Vltava River, the Lužnice, the Sázava, the Ohře River and surrounded by mostly low mountains such as the Šumava Mountains in the west and the Eagle Mountains and Krkonoše range in the north. The highest point in the country, Sněžka (1602 m) is located here. Moravia in the east is hilly and in the south low-country. It’s drained by the Morava River, the Jihlava River, the Svratka, the Odra and the Opava River. Extending along the Czech-Slovak border in the south-eastern part of the country is a section of the Carpathian Mountains (Jeseníky and Beskydy).
There are also several lakes and dams in the Czech Republic such as Lipno dam in Šumava, ponds around the Třeboň, Švihov dam, Orlík dam, Slapy, Vranov dam, Nové Mlýny or Mácha’s lake.
And not least there are several national parks such as Šumava, the Czech Paradise and so on.
Since 2000, the Czech Republic is divided into thirteen regions and the capital city of Prague. Each region has its own elected Regional Assembly and country marshal. In Prague, their powers are executed by the city council and the mayor.
The climate in our Republic is a mixture of maritime and continental influences. It’s temperate with relatively hot summers and cold, cloudy winters, usually with snow. Most rains are during the summer. The temperature difference between summers and winters is relatively high due to its landlocked geographical position. The coldest month is usually January and the warmest month of the year is July.

Population, religion
The major nationalities living in the Czech Republic are Czech and Moravian, but there are also minority groups such as the Silesians, Gypsies, Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Russians, Slovaks and Vietnamese. The Czech people are known in the world for work industry, their special sense of humour, good hockey and football players, athletes and for drinking beer in big quantity.
As for the religion, in the Czech Republic is the most widespread the Roman Catholic but Czech nation is one of the least religious populations in all of Europe.

System of government of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a democratic state. Its government is divided into three branches – the legislative, represented by the Parliament, the executive, represented by the president and the government and the judical, represented by the courts. Our Parliament, according to constitution, consist of two chambers – The Chamber of Deputies (200 deputies; served for four years) and the Senate (81 senators; every two years, one third of the senators is renewed). Elections are public, secret, democratic, equal, direct and universal. Everybody, who is above 18 and who has Czech nationality can take part in them. In the elections the citizens can choose from a variety of political parties from three main groups – the left wing, moderate and the right wing. The president is elected every five years by Parliament and he can serve only for two terms in a row. Our contemporary president is Václav Klaus. The president has a several powers such as: represents the country abroad, he appoints the Prime Minister and the members of t