The Czech Republic is founded on the ancient kingdom of Bohemia, which was formed in the 9th century and reached its greatest territorial extent in the 13th and 14th centuries. After the battle of Mohacs in 1526, when the kingdom of Hungary, then including Bohemia, was defeated by the Ottomans, Bohemia was absorbed into the Habsburg monarchy.

After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire of which Bohemia was a part, following World War I, the independent republic of Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918.

The country was largely occupied by National Socialist Germany throughout World War II.  Its liberation by the Red Army of Russia led to the establishment of a communist regime in 1948.  For the next 41 years it was part of the eastern bloc. In 1968 efforts at political reform known as the Prague Spring led to the invasion and subsequent occupation by Warsaw Pact countries (except Romania).

In 1989 the communist regime collapsed in the Velvet Revolution. On 1 January 1993 Czechoslovakia was divided into the two sovereign states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.