From around 500 BC, the territory of modern-day Slovakia was settled by Celts, and subsequently by Avars.  The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia between the 5th and 6th centuries AD. In the 9th century, the Great Moravian Empire was centred on the city of Nitra. In 863 the saints Cyril and Methodius came from Byzantium to establish Christianity among the Slavic peoples. Cyril developed the first Slavic alphabet and translated the Gospel into the Old Church Slavonic. Around the end of the 9th century Magyar tribes migrated from east of the Carpathian Mountains, and Slovakia became part of the new kingdom of Hungary. With the Turkish occupation of central Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries Bratislava became the capital city of Royal Hungary.

Slovakia was a part of the Austro-Hungarian or Habsburg Empire in the 19th century. Impressive aristocratic châteaux reflect that period. You can click for a larger picture.

After the First World War Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia combined to become Czechoslovakia. A briefly independent Slovak state was created during World War Two. Then from 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia as a Communist state within the Soviet-controlled part of Europe. In the post-war period many Hungarians and Germans were expelled from Slovakia - still a source of tension. Soviet influence ended with the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Slovakia separated to become independent again on 1 January 1993 and joined the European Union in May 2004.