Interesting facts

The official name of Slovakia is the Slovak Republic.

The capital of Slovakia is Bratislava, which is also the largest city in the country.

Slovakia is a member of the European Union, NATO, OECD, WTO and other international organisations.

Slovakia adopted the Euro as its currency on January 1st, 2009.

The most famous American of Ruthenian descent is probably pop art artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987), whose parents immigrated from Miková in north-eastern Slovakia.

The official language of Slovakia is Slovak.

Most tourists to the country come from the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.

Ivan Bella was the first Slovakian in space. He was part of a nine day Russian-French-Slovak mission on the space station Mir in 1999.

Slovak is an official language in Vojvodina (a region in northern Serbia).

Slovak is spoken by more than 6 million people.

The Slovak language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, the West Slavic branch.

Slavs in the era of the Great Moravian Empire, starting in the year 863, wrote in their language using the Glagolitic alphabet.

Slovak is sometimes called "Slavic Esperanto" because it is regarded as the most comprehensible language for the speakers of other Slavic languages.

The independent Slovak republic was formed on 1 January 1993 (The constitution of the Slovak Republic was signed on 1 September 1992).

Since 1 May 2004, Slovakia has been a member of the European Union.

The sound ó only occurs in foreign words used in Slovak.

Jozef Ignác Bajza, author of the first Slovak novel, made the first attempt at the codification of literary Slovak, but did not succeed.

The scholar and Roman Catholic priest Anton Bernolák first codified standard Slovak (also called cultural West Slovak) in 1787.

In 1843 Ľudovít Štúr codified literary Slovak based on Central Slovak dialects.

On 21 December 2007 Slovakia became a member of the Schengen Area.

Since 1 January 2009, the Slovak currency has been the euro (Slovakia is the 16th member of the European Monetary Union).

The total estimated number of persons of Slovak origin living abroad in 2001 was 2,016,000.

The Slovak Republic lies in Central Europe and spreads over a territory with an area of 49 035 km2.

The borders of the Slovak Republic have a total length of 1,672 km.

The border of Slovakia with Austria is 106 km long, with the Czech Republic 252 km, with Poland 547 km. The shortest border with Ukraine is 98 km long and the longest border with Hungary is 669 km long.

The air distance from Slovakia to Rijeka (Adriatic Sea) is 361 km, to Gdansk (Baltic Sea) 440 km and to Constanza (Black Sea) 686 km.

The midpoint of Slovakia is Lubietovsky Vepor – Hump and the geometric centre of Slovakia is Hájny grúň (1 207.7 m a.s.l.).

The highest point in the Slovak Republic is the summit of Gerlachovský štít in the High Tatra mountains (2 655 m a.s.l.).

The lowest point in Slovakia is situated in the municipality of Klin nad Bodrogom (94 m a.s.l.).