Portugal this Saturday play with the Czech Republic or with the Czech Republic? After all, what is the correct name of the country?
The definition was still approved by parliament in April 2016 but not everyone got used to the new designation.
In addition to the Nations League accounts that the selection will have to make, there is another topic that will be important on this day of the national team’s match: do you say Czechia or Czech Republic? Many refer to the Central European Republic, while others refer to a country called Chakia, which has raised questions about the correct form. And actually, the answer is simple: both are valid.
The name change is new, although it has gained greater prominence in recent years with more media not adopting the name Céquia. In fact, the context change of 2 April 26, when the parliament shortened1 the country to a more up-to-date official design context, as advanced BBC, at the high.
Republic was referred to at the time, Czech name has not become obsolete, being the official designation of the State. The change arose as a way to facilitate the use of the name on the world stage, whether in a political or commercial context. It’s almost like a nickname we use to facilitate communications. The same happens with Portugal or France, for example. The official names of the countries are the Portuguese Republic and the French Republic.
The name stir is very present, and it was approved in 2016, which led the United Nations to adopt in May of that year “Czechia” (English name), as it is written in the place of the organization, as well as not official site of the European Union, it is still common to find written or heard about the Czech Republic.
Officially, not everyone agreed with this change. Former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš He said he “didn’t like it at all”, stressing that the designation chosen, in English, could be misleading and confused with the Russian region Chechnya, (Chechnya in English). According to the newspaper, surveys of the Czech population found that they also continued to use the longer name.
The Czech Republic is not an unusual case. In 2020, the Dutch government dropped the name Netherlands by which it was known, ruling that it should now be referred to as the Netherlands. In 2022, Turkey, the most recent country to change its international name, decided to rename it “Türkiye” in order to try to stop being recognized as “Turkey”, which also means “turkey” in English.