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Updates: 

I have added data from the 2011 census, and replaced the 1970 figures under Population history, which were rounded, with exact numbers from source [8].

Two NUTS codes were changed around 2010, leaving a gap in the CZ06 range.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-9 was published on 2007-11-28. The 14 regions are still listed in the standard, but the districts are now regarded as the primary subdivisions.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-5, dated 2003-09-05, shows a change in spelling for two Czech regions. In "Hlavní mesto Praha", the second word should be "město"; and Vysocina should be Vysočina.

Change Notice 8 to FIPS PUB 10-4 is dated 2002-06-28. It changes the names of four regions so that they now match the names used by ISO (see next paragraph). Since FIPS describes this as a name change rather than variant names, I have switched the main names in the table with the variant names in the list below, and identified the variant names as obsolete.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21. It lists the fourteen new regions, with ISO codes as shown below. ISO uses variant names for some of the regions. It includes a spelling error (Vyocina for Vysočina), which is partly corrected in ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-3, published on 2002-08-20, and completely corrected in Newsletter No. I-5, published on 2003-09-05.

Change Notice 6 to FIPS PUB 10-4 was published on 2001-01-28. It shows the reorganization into 14 regions.

Country overview: 

Short name	CZECH REPUBLIC
ISO code	CZ
FIPS code	EZ
Language	Czech (cs)
Time zone	+1 ~
Capital	Prague

 

The Czech Republic is the latest manifestation of Bohemia and Moravia. Those two ethnic and political groupings, along with Slovakia and Ruthenia, have been combined in various ways in the past. Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were provinces of Austria, and covered almost exactly the same territory as the modern Czech Republic. (Bohemia is most closely identified with the Czech people. Austrian Silesia is only a fraction of the area known as Silesia, the bulk of which is now in Poland.) At the end of World War I, shortly before the Armistice, the Czechs organized a new government for the three Austrian provinces. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were doing the same thing in northern Hungary. At the initiative of the Slovaks, the two infant states merged to form Czechoslovakia on 1918-11-14. The Treaty of Saint-Germain (1919-09-10) ratified this fait accompli. The western fringe of Bohemia, known as the Sudetenland, still contained a German-speaking majority. Hitler seized on that pretext to annex the Sudetenland by the Munich Pact of 1938-09-30. Germany, Hungary, and Poland nibbled away at the rest of the country in a series of moves not recognized by the Allies. At the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia was reconstituted almost as it had been before 1938. The Soviet Union annexed Transcarpathian Ukraine, also known as Ruthenia, at the eastern end. A small area east of Ostrava was transferred from Poland to Moravia, splitting in two the city known as Cieszyn in Polish, Těšín in Czech, and Teschen in German. Czechoslovakia's constitution of 1948-06-09 made it a "people's democratic republic," whose primary divisions were two socialist republics: the Czech and the Slovak Socialist Republic. This status prevailed until after the fall of communism. Then, on 1993-01-01, the two republics became separate countries. What had been the second-level subdivisions of Czechoslovakia were now first-level subdivisions of the Czech Republic and of Slovakia.

Other names of country: 

1. Czech: Česká Republika, Česko (informal), Czechia (informal)
2. Danish: Tjekkiet, Den Tjekkiske Republik
3. Dutch: Tsjechië, Tsjechische Republiek
4. Finnish: Tšekin tasavalta, Tšekki
5. French: République f tchèque, Tchéquie
6. German: Tschechische Republik f, Tschechien n
7. Icelandic: Tékkland
8. Italian: Repubblica f Ceca
9. Norwegian: Den tsjekkiske republikk (Bokmål), Den tsjekkiske republikken (Nynorsk), Tsjekkia
10. Portuguese: Chéquia, República f Checa, República f Tcheca (Brazil), Tchéquia (Brazil)
11. Russian: Чехия, Чехословакия (obsolete), Чешская Республика (formal)
12. Spanish: República f Checa, Chequia
13. Swedish: Tjeckien, Tjeckiska republiken
14. Turkish: Çek Cumhuriyeti

Origin of name: 

unknown

Primary subdivisions: 

The Czech Republic is divided into thirteen kraje (sing. kraj: regions) and one hlavní město (city).

Region	HASC	ISO	FIPS	NUTS	LP	Pop-2011	Pop-2001	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Chief town	Other Name	Old regs
Jihočeský	CZ.CK	JC	EZ79	CZ031	C	628,336	625,267	10,057	3,883	České Budějovice	Budweis	JC
Jihomoravský	CZ.BK	JM	EZ78	CZ064	B	1,163,508	1,127,718	7,065	2,728	Brno	Brünn	JM
Karlovarský	CZ.KK	KA	EZ81	CZ041	K	295,595	304,343	3,314	1,280	Karlovy Vary	Carlsbad	ZC
Královéhradecký	CZ.HK	KR	EZ82	CZ052	H	547,916	550,724	4,758	1,837	Hradec Králové	Königsgrätz	VC
Liberecký	CZ.LK	LI	EZ83	CZ051	L	432,439	428,184	3,163	1,221	Liberec	Reichenberg	SC,VC
Moravskoslezský	CZ.VK	MO	EZ85	CZ080	T	1,205,834	1,269,467	5,535	2,137	Ostrava	Mährisch-Ostrau	SM
Olomoucký	CZ.OK	OL	EZ84	CZ071	M	628,427	639,369	5,159	1,992	Olomouc	Olmütz	SM,JM
Pardubický	CZ.EK	PA	EZ86	CZ053	E	511,627	508,281	4,519	1,745	Pardubice	Pardubitz	VC
Plzeňský	CZ.PK	PL	EZ87	CZ032	P	570,401	550,688	7,561	2,919	Plzeň	Pilsen	ZC
Praha	CZ.PM	PR	EZ52	CZ010	A	1,268,796	1,169,106	496	192	Praha	Prag	PR
Středočeský	CZ.SK	ST	EZ88	CZ020	S	1,289,211	1,122,473	11,016	4,253	Praha	Prag	ST
Ústecký	CZ.UK	US	EZ89	CZ042	U	808,961	820,219	5,335	2,060	Ústí nad Labem	Aussig (an der Elbe)	SC
Vysočina	CZ.JK	VY	EZ80	CZ063	J	505,565	519,211	6,925	2,674	Jihlava	Iglau	JM,JC,VC
Zlínský	CZ.ZK	ZL	EZ90	CZ072	Z	579,944	595,010	3,964	1,531	Zlín	Gottwaldov	JM,SM
14 regions						10,436,560	10,230,060	78,868	30,451
Region: Names are in adjectival form, and are normally followed by "kraj" (except Praha, which is a city, and Vysočina). HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Region codes from ISO 3166-2. FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4, a U.S. government standard. NUTS: Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. LP: License plate codes, since 2001. Pop-2011: 2011-03-26 census. Pop-2001: 2001-03-01 census. Other Name: German name of chief town, except Gottwaldov, which was the name of Zlín under the Communist regime. German names were used under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and may be more familiar to some English speakers. The name Gottwaldov is now considered derogatory. Old regs: HASC codes for the pre-change region(s) corresponding to each new region. Largest segment is listed first. For key to codes, see 1960 table below.

Further subdivisions:

See the Districts of the Czech Republic page.

Prague is subdivided into obvodi (10 in 1978, 15 in 2000). The regions are subdivided into 77 okresi (districts). Before 2001, FIPS PUB 10-4 lists the okresi and Prague as divisions.

The NUTS level-2 nomenclature, derived by taking the first four characters of the NUTS codes in the table above, defines an unofficial set of districts (called "oblasti" in Czech). These are their names: CZ01 = Praha (Prague), CZ02 = Střední Čechy (Central Bohemia), CZ03 = Jihozápad (Southwest), CZ04 = Severozápad (Northwest), CZ05 = Severovýchod (Northeast), CZ06 = Jihovýchod (Southeast), CZ07 = Střední Morava (Central Moravia), and CZ08 = Moravskoslezsko (Moravia-Silesia).

Territorial extent: 

The UN LOCODE page  for Czech Republic lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

1. Bohemia: Germanic Baihaimoz: Land of the Boii (ethnic name)
2. Prague: Old Czech Praga: doorsill

Change history: 

1. 1949-01-01: The země (provinces) of Bohemia and Moravia-Silesia were replaced by thirteen regions. The capitals have the same names as their regions. The German names of the capitals are also shown. The subsequent reorganization in 1960 did not follow the same boundaries as this division; to give a rough idea of the correspondence between the two sets of regions, the last column lists the 1960 region for the capital cities. Name of Zlín changed to Gottwaldov, after the Communist president Klement Gottwald.

Region	Population	Area(km.²)	German name	Modern region
Brno	1,001,091	7,449	Brünn	South Moravia
České Budějovice	521,894	8,968	Budweis	South Bohemia
Gottwaldov	655,207	5,107	Gottwaldov	South Moravia
Hradec Králové	583,868	5,145	Königgrätz	East Bohemia
Jihlava	436,982	6,651	Iglau	South Moravia
Karlovy Vary	337,890	4,579	Karlsbad	West Bohemia
Liberec	505,371	4,237	Reichenberg	North Bohemia
Olomouc	650,646	6,214	Olmütz	North Moravia
Ostrava	948,225	4,526	Ostrau	North Moravia
Pardubice	456,819	4,232	Pardubitz	East Bohemia
Plzeň	578,085	7,887	Pilsen	West Bohemia
Prague	2,188,221	9,730	Prag	Prague
Ústí nad Labem	675,907	4,145	Aussig	North Bohemia
13 regions	9,540,206	78,870
Population: as of 1957-01-01

1. 1960: The thirteen regions were replaced by eight regions, as shown in the next table. The Austrian province of Silesia was entirely within North Moravia as a result.

Region	HASC	ISO	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital	PSC
Central Bohemia	CZ.ST	CST	1,118,232	10,994	4,245	Prague	25xxx-29xxx
East Bohemia	CZ.VC	CVC	1,239,726	11,240	4,340	Hradec Králové	50xxx-57xxx
North Bohemia	CZ.SC	CSC	1,190,442	7,819	3,019	Ústí nad Labem	40xxx-47xxx
North Moravia	CZ.SM	CSM	1,972,200	11,067	4,273	Ostrava	70xxx-79xxx
Prague	CZ.PR	PRG	1,214,772	496	192	Prague	10xxx-24xxx
South Bohemia	CZ.JC	CJC	699,564	11,345	4,380	České Budějovice	37xxx-39xxx
South Moravia	CZ.JM	CJM	2,058,156	15,028	5,802	Brno	58xxx-69xxx
West Bohemia	CZ.ZC	CZC	869,461	10,875	4,199	Pilsen	33xxx-36xxx
8 regions			10,362,553	78,864	30,450
Region: except for Prague, which is a hlavni město (city). HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. Population: 1990 estimate PSC: Approximate ranges of Postovní Smerovací Císla (postal codes). Note: postal codes for Czech addresses can be identified by prefixing them with "CZ-". They are written with a space after the third digit.

1. 1969-01-01: Czechoslovakia federalized. Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics created by grouping the existing subdivisions. These two republics became the primary subdivisions of Czechoslovakia.
2. 1990-01-01: Name of Gottwaldov changed back to Zlín.
3. 1993-01-01: Czechoslovakia split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic consisted of the eight divisions listed above, all of which had been divisions of Czechoslovakia with the same boundaries. These regions fell into disuse after 1993.
4. 2001-01-01: A new division into fourteen regions was implemented. The Czech Republic has reorganized its eight regions (kraje) into fourteen. The 77 districts (okresy) and over 6200 municipalities were left intact. The new regions were formed by combining the districts in new ways. The Czech parliament authorized the change by Act 347 of 1997, to take effect on 2000-01-01. Implementation took longer than expected. Elections for the new regions took place in fall 2000, and the regions were instituted one year late.
5. 2004-05-01: The Czech Republic joined the European Union.
6. 2004-09-15: The last digit of some NUTS-3 codes were changed from '1' to '0'. The regions affected were those where a NUTS-2 level area contained only one NUTS-3 level area.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Bohemia: Boemia (Italian); Boêmia (Portuguese); Bohême (French); Böhmen (German); Čechy (Czech); Богемия (Russian)
2. Central Bohemia: Středočeský (Czech)
3. East Bohemia: Východočeský (Czech)
4. Jihomoravský: Jihomoravský Brnenský (obsolete); South Moravia (English)
5. Jihoceský: Budejovický, Ceskobudejovický (obsolete); South Bohemia (English)
6. Moravia: Mähren (German); Morava (Czech); Moravie (French); Morávia (Portuguese)
7. Moravskoslezský: Moravia-Silesia (English); Ostravský (obsolete)
8. North Bohemia: Severočeský (Czech)
9. North Moravia: Severomoravský (Czech)
10. Prague: Hlavní město Praha (variant); Prag (German, Swedish, Turkish); Praga (Italian, Portuguese, Spanish); Praha (Czech, Norwegian); Прага (Russian)
11. Silesia: Schlesien (German); Silésia (Portuguese); Silésie (French); Sleszko (Czech)
12. Vysočina: Jihlavský (obsolete)
13. West Bohemia: Západočeský (Czech)

Population history:

Region	1900	1921	1930	1950	1961	1970-12-01	1982	1990
Prague	516,000	678,000	853,000	940,000	1,003,000	1,079,526	1,185,693	1,214,772
Central Bohemia	1,186,000	1,228,000	1,320,000	1,202,000	1,270,000	1,190,815	1,147,104	1,118,232
South Bohemia	835,000	836,000	810,000	626,000	650,000	652,059	693,165	699,564
West Bohemia	1,082,000	1,156,000	1,212,000	772,000	829,000	848,558	878,044	869,461
North Bohemia	1,387,000	1,455,000	1,570,000	1,027,000	1,085,000	1,101,756	1,173,782	1,190,442
East Bohemia	1,396,000	1,383,000	1,411,000	1,155,000	1,199,000	1,201,450	1,247,994	1,239,726
South Moravia	1,569,000	1,730,000	1,835,000	1,751,000	1,900,000	1,934,706	2,051,662	2,058,156
North Moravia	1,401,000	1,543,000	1,663,000	1,423,000	1,631,000	1,798,826	1,944,661	1,972,200
Totals	9,372,000	10,009,000	10,674,000	8,896,000	9,567,000	9,807,696	10,322,105	10,362,553
(Populations for 1900-1950 are said to correspond to regional boundaries as of 1961.)

Sources: 

1. [1] Key results , Czech statistical office (retrieved 2014-01-01).
2. [2] Territory and Administration in Europe. Robert Bennett, ed. Pinter Publishers, London and New York, 1989.
3. [3] Jednotný Číselník Organizací v ČSSR, Svazek I. Federální Statistický Úřad (Federal Statistical Office). Únor 1978.
4. [4] Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States 1992. Europa Publications Ltd., London, 1992.
5. [5] Districts of the Czech Republic 2002 (http://www.czso.cz/eng/edicniplan.nsf/publtisk/1303-03-2002, dead link, retrieved 2004-08-31).
6. [6] Atlas Obyvatelstva ČSSR. Milan Kučera and Vladimir Srb. Ústřední správa geodésie a kartografie, Prague, 1962.
7. [7] Radio Prague  reported that the districts had ceased to function on 2003-01-01. WordiQ.com  had a slightly different explanation (both retrieved 2004-08-31).
8. [8] 1979 Demographic Yearbook , 31st Ed. Statistical Office, United Nations, New York, 1980 (retrieved 2011-12-28).