What Czechia is known for: cars, beer, glass and the word 'robot'

Visitors will say beer, Prague, castles, perhaps Kafka. An economist will say car factories. Both are right, and the interesting part lies between them: a country of about 78,900 square kilometres whose reach in manufacturing, culture and invention outruns its size.

Industry: a country that builds things

The Czech economy is unusually industrial for a developed European state. Manufacturing is a large part of national output, and its heart is the car industry. Škoda Auto, based in Mladá Boleslav, is the biggest Czech manufacturer and the country's best-known company brand. It began in 1895 as the bicycle maker Laurin & Klement and has been part of the Volkswagen Group since the 1990s. With Hyundai's plant at Nošovice and a large network of component suppliers, motor vehicles and parts are the leading export category (the Czech Statistical Office publishes current figures). Our pieces on Hyundai in Nošovice and the Czech car industry and Czechia's economic ties with Germany show how the sector is built.

Other industrial names include Tatra, the truck maker in Kopřivnice, and a broad base of engineering, electronics and machinery firms. The aircraft maker Aero Vodochody is covered in a separate piece on the L-159 and the Czech aircraft industry.

Beer, and not only beer

Czechia is the country most associated with beer. Pilsner, the pale golden lager, was first brewed in Plzeň in 1842, and the style spread across the world, as described in our guide to Pilsner and the world's first golden lager. The country is long-standing among the leaders in beer drunk per head, and the pub, with its half-litre glass, is a social institution. Our guide to Czech beer culture explains the customs.

Beer is not the only drink. Moravia produces wine, and the south-east around Mikulov and Znojmo is the country's main wine region, as covered in our piece on Czech wine and the Moravian regions. Slivovice (plum brandy) and Becherovka, a herbal liqueur from Karlovy Vary, complete the picture; see the guide to Czech spirits.

Glass, crystal and craftsmanship

Bohemian glass has been exported for centuries and is still made in the north of the country, around Nový Bor, and in Karlovy Vary, where the Moser company has produced glass since 1857. The glass beads and costume jewellery of Jablonec nad Nisou are another long-standing speciality. The glass sold in tourist shops varies a great deal in quality and origin.

Music, literature and film

Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček are the Czech composers most often performed abroad, and the Czech Philharmonic is the country's leading orchestra (see our piece on the Czech Philharmonic).

Franz Kafka was born in Prague and wrote in German. Jaroslav Hašek wrote The Good Soldier Švejk, one of the great comic novels of the twentieth century. Karel Čapek, a playwright and essayist, wrote R.U.R., which gave the world the word robot; the word was coined by his brother Josef, a painter, from the Czech robota, meaning forced labour. Milan Kundera, born in Brno, wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being. And Václav Havel was a playwright before he was a president, as told in our profile from dissident playwright to president.

Film has its own tradition. The Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s produced directors such as Miloš Forman and Jiří Menzel, and Menzel's Closely Watched Trains won the Oscar for best foreign language film at the 1968 ceremony. Czech puppet and animation work, from Jiří Trnka to Jan Švankmajer, has a following of its own. The puppet pair Spejbl and Hurvínek are described in our piece on Spejbl and Hurvínek.

Invention and science

The monk Gregor Mendel did the experiments that founded modern genetics in the monastery garden at Brno in the 1860s. Otto Wichterle, a chemist, developed the hydrogel used in soft contact lenses in the 1950s and 1960s. Semtex, the plastic explosive, was first made in 1966 at a chemical works near Pardubice. As with most "first inventor" stories, details are argued over, but the broad attributions hold.

Food: heavier than its reputation suggests

The national cooking is built for cold weather. Roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, beef in cream sauce (svíčková) and goulash are the standard dishes, and fried cheese and potato soup are everyday lunch items. Expect a meat-and-dumplings menu in the typical pub. The dishes and the customs around them are described in our guide to traditional Czech food, and the holiday dishes, from the Christmas carp to Easter treats, in the pieces on Czech Christmas traditions and Easter traditions.

A small country with a long memory

Behind the products lies a history Czechs carry with them: the medieval kingdom of Bohemia under Charles IV, the Hussite wars, the Habsburg centuries, the first Czechoslovak republic, occupation, communism and the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Public holidays and street names carry traces of these events. To see why 28 October is a public holiday, start with the guide to public holidays and the short history of Czechia.

Places: Prague, castles and spas

Prague is the main attraction. Its historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1992, which is explained in our guide to the historic centre as a UNESCO site, and Prague Castle is among the largest castle complexes in the world. The country has more than a dozen UNESCO sites in all, including Český Krumlov, Kutná Hora and the spa towns of Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně, which were added to the list in 2021 as part of the transnational Great Spa Towns of Europe. Castles and chateaux, great and small, are found in nearly every region.

Sport and everyday habits

Czechs are keen on ice hockey, football, tennis and hiking. The national hockey team won gold at the 1998 Winter Olympics, and the long-distance runner Emil Zátopek, who won three golds in Helsinki in 1952, is a national hero. The Club of Czech Tourists, founded in 1888, started the marked-trail network that now covers the country, and mushroom picking in autumn is an institution.

What it is not

Czechia is Central European, not Eastern in any sense but the Cold War one, and central Prague is not a bargain. Nor is cannabis legal here; our piece on the law on weed explains where the line sits.

Frequently asked questions

What is Czechia most famous for?

Prague and its historic centre, beer (especially Pilsner), cars (Škoda), glass and its composers and writers. The best answer depends on whether you ask a tourist, an economist or a musician.

What did Czechia invent?

Czech names are linked with the word 'robot' (Čapek), the soft contact lens (Wichterle), the sugar cube (Rad) and Mendel's genetics. Check specialist sources for the details of each claim.

What are Czechia's main exports?

Motor vehicles and their parts, machinery and electrical equipment are the largest categories. The Czech Statistical Office publishes the current figures.

Is Czechia known for its food?

For hearty dishes such as svíčková with dumplings, roast pork and goulash, usually with beer. Our guide to Czech traditional food has the details.

Is Czechia a good country to visit outside Prague?

Yes. Český Krumlov, Kutná Hora, Moravian wine villages, spa towns and mountain trails all reward a visit.

Start in Prague, but leave a day for Moravia.