Economy of Czech Republic, Its People, Culture & Flag

Around 94 percent of the population of Czech Republic is made up of Czechs, the dominant ethnic group of the country. The remaining six per cent is made of three percent of Slovaks and three percent of Poles, Germans, Roma (Gypsies), and Hungarians. It is a highly urbanized country with over 75 per cent of the people living in urban areas.

The country has a rich cultural heritage and has given the world some excellent artists. When it comes to music, the three main names that automatically comes to one's mind are Bedrich Smetana, Antonín Dvorák, and Leoš Janácek. Smetana wrote his major works in the late 19th century and based much of his music on Czech folk songs and dances. His famous opera The Bartered Bride (1866) provided a comic portrayal of Czech national life. Dvorák was also known for incorporating Czech folk music into his works. Janácek, whose career reached its height in the early 20th century, used the styles of Moravian folk music in the composition of his operas.

The Czech Republic Flag has two equal horizontal bands of white at the top and red with a blue isosceles triangle based on the hoist side.

Please click here to view the Flag of Czech Republic

Czech Republic is one of the most economically developed countries of Europe. In the year 1948, when the Communists came to power, they created a highly centralized economic system in which almost every aspect of economic planning and management came under the control of the central government. This economic policy followed a tradition of trading that took place only between the Communist countries. No doubt, following this tradition had the country boasting of a high standard of living in comparison to other European countries then, but in the long run it led to an economic decline. As the Communist regime collapsed in 1989, the subsequent government took reform measure to save the situation. The new economic policy privatized most of the firms and business boomed in the major cities of the country. So the declining economy soon began to recover and in late 1994, inflation was about 10 percent, less than half of what it was in 1991. Gross domestic product (GDP) increased by approximately 2 percent in 1994. Industrial production, which declined sharply in 1990 and 1991, also grew in 1994. The country's foreign debt has remained modest. By 2001 the GDP had reached $56.8 billion.