The Slovak Republic (Slovak: Slovenská republika), also known as Slovakia (Slovak: Slovensko), is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over six and a half million and an area of about 61,000 square kilometres. Slovakia is bordered by Czechia and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, and Hungary and Romania to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Economic Community and League of Nations. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family.
The Slavs arrived in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), the Principality of Nitra (as independent polity, as part of Great Moravia and as part of Hungarian Kingdom), Great Moravia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Today, Slovakia is a high-income advanced economy with one of the fastest growth rates in the EEC.