Slovakia is a landlocked republic in Central Europe, bounded on the northwest by the Czech Republic, on the north by Poland, on the east by Ukraine, on the south by Hungary, and on the southwest by Austria. The capital and the largest city is Bratislava.

Slovaks comprise about 86 percent of the country's inhabitants. Other minorities include Hungarians, Roma (Gypsies), Czechs, Ukrainians, Poles, and Germans. The estimated population in 2003 was 5.4 million. The religious composition is Roman Catholic (60.3%), atheist (9.7%), and Protestant (8.4%); other religions comprise the remaining 11.6 percent.

Slovakia existed as a part of Hungary from the beginning of the tenth century until 1918, when it united with the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia declared its independence in 1939, shortly before the start of World War II (1939–1945), under pressure from German dictator Adolf Hitler (1889–1945). In 1945 it was reunited with the rest of Czechoslovakia, which was ruled by a Soviet-style communist regime...