The Czech Republic is a city.
The Czech Republic ( [ ˈtʃɛkiə ] , ; Česko , [ ˈt͡ʃɛsko ] ) , is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west , Austria to the south , Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast . It is a unitary parliamentary republic , has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague , with over 1.2 million residents . The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union ( EU ) in 2004 ; it is a member of the United Nations , the OECD , the OSCE , and the Council of Europe . Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia [ ˌtʃɛkoʊsloʊˈvækiə , _ - kə - , _ - slə - , _ - ˈvɑː - ] ( Czech and Československo , Česko-Slovensko ) was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918 , when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire , until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993 .