Slovakia, officially Slovak Republic, Country, central Europe. Area: 18,932 sq mi (49,034 sq km). Population: (2024 est.) 5,424,000. Capital: Bratislava. More than four-fifths of the population is Slovak; Hungarians form the largest minority. Language: Slovak (official). Religion: Christianity (mostly Roman Catholic; also Protestant, other Christians). Currency: euro. The Carpathian Mountains dominate Slovakia, with lowlands in the southwestern and southeastern regions. The Morava and Danube rivers form parts of the southern and western borders. Grain, sugar beets, and potatoes are grown and pigs, sheep, and cattle are raised, but the economy is based on services and manufacturing. Slovakia is a unitary multiparty republic with one legislative house; its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. Slovakia was inhabited in the first centuries ce by Illyrian, Celtic, and Germanic tribes. Slovaks settled there around the 6th century. In the 9th century, part of what is now Slovakia belonged to Great Moravia, which was conquered by the Magyars in the early 10th century. The Slovak territory then remained in the kingdom of Hungary until the end of World War I, when the Slovaks joined the Czechs to form the new state of Czechoslovakia in 1918. In 1938 Slovakia was declared an autonomous unit within Czechoslovakia; it was nominally independent under German protection from 1939 to 1945. After the expulsion of the Germans, Slovakia joined a reconstituted Czechoslovakia, which came under Soviet domination in 1948. The fall of the communist regime in 1989 led to a revival of interest in autonomy, and Slovakia became an independent nation in 1993. It joined both NATO and the European Union in 2004.
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