Once a union country called Czechoslovakia had a state border, after crossing which one could get into two completely different worlds - capitalist and socialist. The first was represented on the map by West Germany (FRG) and Austria, the second - by East Germany (GDR), Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union (Ukrainian SSR). But after the well-known political events of the early 90s, the current Czech Republic has only four neighbors - now united Germany, Austria, Poland and Slovakia, which had separated from it.
USSR, goodbye
The independent Czech Republic, or the Czech Republic, began to change and legalize its current borders immediately after the withdrawal from the CSFR (Czech and Slovak Federal Republic) on January 1, 1993. So, two "transitional" years before the collapse of the year was named after the Second World War Czechoslovakia (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic). A country in which the military-political bloc of socialist countries called the "Warsaw Pact" was disbanded a little earlier.
For four decades, Czechoslovakia, which was building socialism, bordered both the capitalist FRG and Austria and other representatives of the European socialist camp - Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland and even the USSR. But, since political and closely related territorial redistributions in Europe took place not only on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia, but also in other countries of the continent, the changes turned out to be serious. Firstly, the "pro-Soviet" GDR and the "hostile" GDR, and therefore willingly accepting Czech emigrants, the FRG, which became a united Germany, disappeared from the world map forever.
Secondly, after the peaceful "divorce" with Slovakia, later called "velvet", the sovereign Czech Republic lost its common border not only with Hungary, but also with Ukraine, which had left the USSR by that time. By the way, the disintegration of Czechoslovakia into two separate states is the only such case in Europe, which was not accompanied by an armed conflict, bloodshed, mutual territorial border claims and other revolutionary excesses.
Finally, thirdly, the newly-made country in the center of the continent has a new border - with its kindred Slovakia. And the total length of the border strip is now 1,880 km. In Czechoslovakia, it was naturally longer. The longest stretch of the Czech border is located in the north and connects it with Poland, at 658 km. In second place is the Czech-German border in the west and north-west of the country - 646 km, and is slightly inferior to the leader. The third longest is the southern state border with Austria, it reaches 362 km. And the last, fourth place is occupied by the eastern and youngest border with Slovakia - only 214 km.
Edges near the border
Certain regions of the Czech Republic are called "edges" and almost all of them border on one or even two neighboring countries. In particular, the South Bohemian Region with its capital in Ceske Budejovice, located in the south of the historical region of Bohemia and, partially, in Moravia, has 323 km of common borders with Austria and Germany. There are four other regions adjacent to Germany - Pilsen (its capital is Pilsen, the city of Prazdroi beer and Skoda cars), Karlovy Vary (a half-Russian-speaking resort town with healing springs Karlovy Vary), Usti nad Labem, famous for Rudny, Labskie and Luzhitsky mountains) and Liberec (Liberec). Moreover, the latter is geographically close not only to Germany (the length of the common border is 20 km), but also to Poland (130 km).
With the former Polish People's Republic, with its Silesian mining region, the Czech Republic is connected by a common border in four other regions - in Pardubice (Pardubice), Kralovehradskiy (Hradec Králové), Olomouc (Olomouc), where it has the longest length - 104 km, and finally, in Moravian-Silesian (Ostrava). In the north and north-east, the Moravian-Silesian Region is in close contact with Poland, and in the south-east with Slovakia. The common border with the "relative" also exists at the Carpathian Zlín region (Zlín) and South Moravian (Brno), next to which is not only the Slovak, but also the Austrian border area.
United Europe
In 2004, the Czech Republic entered the zone of the so-called European Union and the Schengen Agreement, removing the guards and opening the borders for free movement. Moreover, all the border states - Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia - have also joined the European Union. All the more surprising is the fact that the first places in the number of foreigners who came to the Czech Republic not only for the sake of such popular tourism (Slovaks out of competition), but also settled here, are occupied by Ukrainians, Vietnamese and Russians.
