19 Facts About Slovakia

Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked Central European country.

It is bounded to the north by Poland, to the east by Ukraine, to the south by Hungary, to the southwest by Austria, and to the northwest by the Czech Republic.

90% of Slovaks have completed at least secondary school, which is the highest rate in the EU (along with Poles, Czechs, and Slovenes).

Along with Lithuanian and Polish women, Slovak women marry the youngest (average 24 years old) in the European Union.

According to the OECD, Slovakia has one of the lowest levels of healthcare funding in the EU, with only $690 per capita in 2005.

According to OECD data from 2011, Slovaks have one of the highest rates of cardiovascular disease and heart-related deaths in the world.

Slovakia, along with the three Baltic countries, has the highest rate of death from cardiovascular disease in the EU.

With 3.1 people per household, Slovakia and Poland have the largest households in the EU.

Slovaks have the highest percentage of Gypsy (Romani) genes of any non-Gypsy population in Europe, according to a 2009 Y-chromosomal study. As many as 2.5% of Eastern Slovak male lineages are members of the distinct Romani haplogroup H1a (compared to less than 1% of Romanians). 

Slovakia is ranked 129th out of 178 countries in the Satisfaction with Life Index. According to the World Values Survey (2005), Slovaks were among the least happy people in the world, trailing only Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, and Bulgarians.

Martina Hingis (born 1980) is a tennis champion and former World No. 1 who has won five Grand Slam singles titles and nine Grand Slam women's doubles titles. She was born in Slovakia to a Slovak father and a Czech mother.

Adriana Sklenaríková (born in 1971), better known in many countries under her married name Adriana Karembeu, was born in Slovakia to a Slovak mother and a Czech father.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), whose parents immigrated from Miková in north-eastern Slovakia, is probably the most famous American of Slovak descent.

For 2007, the Slovak economy is expected to grow at the third fastest rate in the EU-27 (after Latvia and Estonia).

The GDP per capita in Bratislava (the capital) is three times that of the country's poorest provinces. In fact, it is 30% higher than the EU average and ranks second in Eastern Europe only to Prague.

Only 5% of all working women in Slovakia work part-time. 

Slovakia had the highest unemployment rate in the EU (10.8%) in 2006, though it had been steadily declining since 2001, when it peaked at 19.2%. Inflation also fell sharply, from 12.0% in 2000 to 2.5% in 2007.

On January 1, 2009, Slovakia became the second country from the former Communist bloc to adopt the Euro as its currency.

Štefan Banič (1870-1941) invented and patented the first actively used parachute in 1913.