Ethnicity, Language, & Religion of Czech Republic

Ethnicity

An overwhelming number of Czech citizens are ethnic Czechs, but there is a small Slovak minority, most commonly along their eastern border with Slovakia. A third ethnic group of note is the Moravians, who are genetically identical to the Czechs, but often identify as such. The Czech, and Moravian, people are Western Slavs and are ethnically similar to the Slovaks and to a lesser extent the Poles. More distantly, all these people are related to the Eastern and Southern Slavs.

Language

The ethnic Czechs tend to speak Czech as a first language, while the small Slovak minority speaks Slovak and the Moravians speak Moravian, which is nearly identical to Czech although many Moravians prefer to separate the two. Czech (and the other two languages) are western Slavic languages and are very similar to each other and to Polish.

English is the most common second language in the Czech Republic and most young students learn the language in school. The fluency of each individual drastically varies as most young people in Prague speak quite well, while in smaller towns the fluency tends to be poorer. German is also taught, but in much smaller numbers.

Religion

Most of the people in the Czech Republic are not religious and either claim to be religiously unaffiliated or atheist. Among the rest of the population, Catholicism is the most commonly practiced religion.

Catholicism is a Christian religion that is one of the first Christian religions (founded after the death of Jesus in about 30-33 AD). Catholicism believes that there is a single God who created everything, a savior, the son of God, Jesus Christ who is the forgiver of sins, and there is the Holy Spirit, which makes up the last part of the Holy Trinity. Catholics follow the teachings of the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments. Much of the faith is based on the life and teachings of Jesus, which is found in the gospels (in the New Testament).

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This page was last updated: May, 2014