Slovakia is a landlocked country in Central and Danubian Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres . The Slovak Republic borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, UN, OECD, WTO, UNESCO and other international organizations.

The Slavic people arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia between the 5th and 6th centuries AD during the Migration Period. In the course of history, various parts of Slovakia belonged to Samo’s Empire , Great Moravia, the Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg monarchy, Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovak Republic became an independent state on January 1, 1993 with the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia in the Velvet Divorce; it was, with the Czech Republic, the last European country to gain independence in the 20th century.

Slovakia is a high-income economy with one of the fastest growth rates in the EU and OECD. It joined the European Union in 2004 and joined the Eurozone on the 1st of January, 2009.
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