Slovakia

Slovak Republic
Slovenská republika (Slovak)
Anthem: Nad Tatrou sa blýska (Slovak)
"Lightning over the Tatras"
National seal
Location of Slovakia (dark green)

– in Europe (green & dark grey)
– in the European Union (green)  –  [Legend]

Capital
and largest city
Bratislava
48°09′N 17°07′E / 48.150°N 17.117°E / 48.150; 17.117
Official languagesSlovak
Ethnic groups
(2021)[1]
Religion
(2021)[2]
  • 23.8% no religion
  • 0.9% other
  • 6.5% unspecified
Demonym(s)Slovak
GovernmentUnitary parliamentary republic
• President
Peter Pellegrini
Robert Fico
Richard Raši
LegislatureNational Council
Establishment history
28 October 1918
4 June 1920
30 September 1938
14 March 1939
24 October 1945
25 February 1948
11 July 1960
• Slovak Socialist Republic (within Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, change of unitary Czechoslovak state into a federation)
1 January 1969
• Slovak Republic (change of name within established Czech and Slovak Federative Republic)
1 March 1990
1 January 1993
Area
• Total
49,035 km2 (18,933 sq mi) (127th)
• Water (%)
0.72 (2015)[3]
Population
• 31 December 2024 estimate
Neutral decrease 5,419,451[4] (119th)
• 2021 census
Neutral increase 5,449,270[5]
• Density
110/km2 (284.9/sq mi) (103rd)
GDP (PPP)2025 estimate
• Total
Increase $256.710 billion[6] (70th)
• Per capita
Increase $47,440[6] (46th)
GDP (nominal)2025 estimate
• Total
Increase $152.480 billion[6] (61st)
• Per capita
Increase $28,180[6] (44th)
Gini (2022)Positive decrease 21.2[7]
low inequality
HDI (2022)Decrease 0.855[8]
very high (45th)
CurrencyEuro () (EUR)
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)
UTC+2 (CEST)
Date formatd. m. yyyy
Calling code+421
ISO 3166 codeSK
Internet TLD.sk and .eu

Slovakia,[a] officially the Slovak Republic,[b] is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's mostly mountainous territory spans about 49,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi), hosting a population exceeding 5.4 million. The capital and largest city is Bratislava, while the second largest city is Košice.

The Slavs arrived in the territory of the present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries. From the late 6th century, parts of modern Slovakia were incorporated into the Avar Khaghanate. In the 7th century, the Slavs played a significant role in the creation of Samo's Empire. When the Avar Khaghanate dissolved in the 9th century, the Slavs established the Principality of Nitra before it was annexed by the Principality of Moravia, which later became Great Moravia. When Great Moravia fell in the 10th century, the territory was integrated into the Principality of Hungary at the end of the 9th century, which later became the Kingdom of Hungary in 1000.[11] In 1241 and 1242, after the Mongol invasion of Europe, much of the territory was destroyed, but was recovered largely thanks to Hungarian king Béla IV. During the 16th and 17th centuries, southern portions of present-day Slovakia were incorporated into provinces of the Ottoman Empire.[12][13] The Ottoman-controlled areas were ceded to the Habsburgs by the turn of the 18th century. The Hungarian declaration of independence in 1848 was followed in the same year by the Slovak Uprising through the establishment of the Slovak National Council.[14] While the uprising didn't achieve its aim, it played an important role in cementing a Slovak national identity. The Hungarian wars of independence eventually resulted in a compromise that established the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[15]

During World War I, the Czechoslovak National Council successfully fought for independence amidst the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the state of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed in 1918. The borders were set by the Treaty of Saint Germain in 1919 and by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 Czechoslovakia incorporated the territory of present-day Slovakia which was entirely part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the lead up to World War II, local fascist parties gradually came to power in the Slovak lands, and the first Slovak Republic was established in 1939 as a one-party clerical fascist client state under the control of Nazi Germany. In 1940, the country joined the Axis when its leaders signed the Tripartite Pact. Czechoslovakia was re-established after the country's liberation at the end of the war in 1945. Following the Soviet-backed coup of 1948, Czechoslovakia became a communist state within the Eastern Bloc, a satellite state of the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain and member of the Warsaw Pact. Attempts to liberalise communism culminated in the Prague Spring, which was suppressed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In 1989, the Velvet Revolution peacefully ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became an independent democratic state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia, sometimes referred to as the Velvet Divorce.

Slovakia is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy. The country maintains a combination of a market economy with a comprehensive social security system, providing citizens with universal health care, free education, one of the lowest retirement age in Europe and one of the longest paid parental leaves in the OECD.[16] Slovakia is a member of the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen Area, the United Nations, NATO, CERN, the OECD, the WTO, the Council of Europe, the Visegrád Group, and the OSCE. Slovakia is also home to eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The world's largest per-capita car producer, Slovakia manufactured a total of 1.1 million cars in 2019, representing 43% of its total industrial output.[17]

  1. ^ "SODB2021 – Population – Basic results". Archived from the original on 4 November 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
  2. ^ "SODB2021 – K rímskokatolíckemu vyznaniu sa prihlásilo 56 % obyvateľov". Archived from the original on 20 May 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  3. ^ "Surface water and surface water change". Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Archived from the original on 24 March 2021. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  4. ^ "Stock of population in the SR on 31 December 2024". slovak.statistics.sk. Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 7 March 2025. Retrieved 15 April 2025.
  5. ^ "2021 Population and Housing Census". scitanie.sk. Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 20 December 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d "World Economic Outlook Database, October 2024 Edition. (Slovakia)". www.imf.org. International Monetary Fund. 22 October 2024. Retrieved 29 November 2024.
  7. ^ "Gini coefficient of equivalised disposable income – EU-SILC survey". ec.europa.eu. Eurostat. Archived from the original on 9 October 2020. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
  8. ^ "Human Development Report 2023/2024" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. 13 March 2024. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 March 2024. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  9. ^ Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0
  10. ^ Roach, Peter (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-15253-2
  11. ^ Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). Encyclopedia of Russian & Slavic myth and legend. ABC-CLIO. p. 375. ISBN 978-1-57607-130-4. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  12. ^ Pirický, Gabriel (3 March 2023), "The Legacy of the Ottoman (Turkish) Age in Slovakia in the 21st Century", Europe's Islamic Legacy: 1900 to the Present, Brill, pp. 29–47, doi:10.1163/9789004510722_004, ISBN 978-90-04-51072-2, retrieved 1 November 2024
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "A life for a language: Ľudovít Štúr (1815–54) and the Slovak nation". British Library. 28 October 2015.
  15. ^ "Austria-Hungary, HISTORICAL EMPIRE, EUROPE". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  16. ^ "Which countries are most generous to new parents?". The Economist. Archived from the original on 4 November 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  17. ^ "Slovakia beats record in car production, again". 13 January 2020. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2020.


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