Saturday, April 16, 2016

No, It's Not Chechnya. It's "Czechia."


This is bound to cause a little bit of confusion. When Czechoslovakia split up we were left with Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Now the Czech Republic is getting a "short form" name. The new name is Czechia.

In a meeting with reporters this week, Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said he supported the move, suggesting that foreigners often mangled his country’s name when he met them abroad. “It is not good if a country does not have clearly defined symbols or if it even does not clearly say what its name is,” Zaoralek said, according to the Czech News Agency.

When the decision does go through, Czechia will officially become the conventional short-form name for the country, while the Czech Republic will remain the conventional long-form name.

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