Bohemia

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic, no longer an official administrative unit but still a distinct cultural area covering about 52,065 square kilometers, its borders mostly marked by mountain ranges including the Bohemian Forest, the Ore Mountains, and the Giant Mountains. The region is home to roughly 6.9 million people, about 63 percent of the Czech Republic's population of 10.9 million. Historically Bohemia rose from an independent duchy to a kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire, later came under Habsburg rule, joined Czechoslovakia after the First World War, and became part of the modern Czech Republic on that state's establishment in 1993; in its broadest historical sense, as the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, it also encompassed Moravia and Czech Silesia under Bohemian kings.