First Czechoslovak Republic

The First Czechoslovak Republic (Czech: První československá republika, Slovak: Prvá československá republika), often colloquially referred to as the First Republic (Czech: První republika, Slovak: Prvá republika), was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo), a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian (Bohemia, Moravia, a small part of Silesia) and Hungarian territories (mostly Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia).

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Czechoslovak Republic Československá republika (Czech)
1918–1938
Top: Flag (1920–1938) Bottom: Flag (1918–1920) Middle coat of arms (1920–1938)
Motto: Pravda vítězí / Pravda víťazí "Truth prevails"
Anthem: ’Kde domov můj’ (Czech) ’Where my home is’ ’Nad Tatrou sa blýska’ (Slovak) ’Lightning Over the Tatras’
The Czechoslovak Republic in 1938
Capital and largest city	Prague
Official languages	Czechoslovak[1]
Common languages	List Czechoslovak (Czech · Slovak), German, Hungarian, Rusyn, Romani, Polish, Yiddish
Demonym(s)	Czechoslovak
Government	Unitary parliamentary republic
President
• 1918–1935	Tomáš Masaryk
• 1935–1938	Edvard Beneš
Prime Minister
• 1918–1919 (first)	Karel Kramář
• 1938 (last)	Jan Syrový
Legislature	National Assembly
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Historical era	Interwar period
• Independence declared	18 October 1918
• Independence proclaimed	28 October 1918
• Constitution adopted	29 February 1920
• Munich Agreement	30 September 1938
Area
• Total	140,800 km2 (54,400 sq mi)
Population
• 1921	13,410,750
• 1938	14,800,000
Currency	Czechoslovak koruna
Preceded by Succeeded by Austria-Hungary Second Czechoslovak Republic Reichsgau Sudetenland Kingdom of Hungary Second Polish Republic
Today part of	Czech Republic Slovakia Ukraine

After 1933, Czechoslovakia remained the only de facto functioning democracy in Central Europe, organized as a parliamentary republic. Under pressure from its Sudeten German minority, supported by neighbouring Nazi Germany, Czechoslovakia was forced to cede its Sudetenland region to Germany on 1 October 1938 as part of the Munich Agreement. It also ceded southern parts of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary and the Trans-Olza region in Silesia to Poland. This, in effect, ended the First Czechoslovak Republic. It was replaced by the Second Czechoslovak Republic, which lasted less than half a year before Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.