Slovakia Country Overview
Where is Slovakia located? The landlocked country of Slovakia is located in Central Europe. Czechoslovakia emerged from this state. The time zone map places Slovakia in the Central European Time Zone, a world time zone that has a +1 hour time offset from Coordinated World Time. In the summer months, this difference is +2 hours, since the clock is then advanced by one hour.
Population Distribution
As of 2023, the latest population of Slovakia is 5,440,602, based on our calculation of the current data from UN (United Nations).
| Total population | 5,440,602 |
| Population growth rate | -0.05% |
| Birth rate | 9.70 births per 1,000 people |
| Life expectancy | |
| Overall life expectancy | 76.24 years |
| Men life expectancy | 72.36 years |
| Women life expectancy | 80.31 years |
| Age structure | |
| 0-14 years | 15.20% |
| 15-64 years | 68.84% |
| 65 years and above | 15.97% |
| Median age | 39.60 years |
| Gender ratio (Male to Female) | 0.94 |
| Population density | 110.95 residents per km² |
| Urbanization | 57.40% |
| Ethnicities | |
| 80.7% Slovaks, 8.5% Hungarians, 2.0% Roma, 0.6% Czech, 0.6% Ruthenians; Minorities of Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and others; Proportion of foreigners 2015: 1.1% | |
| Religions | |
| Catholics (Roman Catholic) 68.9%, Protestants 10.8%, Catholics (Greek Catholic) 4.1%, other or not precisely specified 3.2% non-denominational 13% [2001 census] | |
| Human Development Index (HDI) | 0.857 |
| HDI ranking | 36th out of 194 |
People in Slovakia
About 80 out of 100 residents of Slovakia are Slovaks. 9 percent are Hungarians. They live in the south, on the border with Hungary.
2 percent are Roma. However, their share could be a lot higher due to incorrect information. Roma are groups of people who speak a common language, Romani. The Roma have no land of their own, but are a minority wherever they live.
Minorities are Ruthenians (0.6 percent, in the northeast), Czechs (0.6 percent), Ukrainians (0.1 percent), Germans (0.1 percent) and Moravians (0.1 percent).
Most of the Slovaks live in the valley basins of the mountains. Only 54 percent live in a city. The biggest cities are Bratislava, Košice, Prešov and Žilina. The birth rate (as in Germany) averages 1.4 children per woman.
Languages in Slovakia
Slovak is spoken in Slovakia. This is also the official language of the country.
In all municipalities in which at least 15 percent of the population have another mother tongue, this becomes the second official language in that municipality. In the municipality of Krahule in central Slovakia, German is the second language. The place-name signs in such communities are bilingual. Other languages that are the official languages in individual municipalities are Hungarian, Czech, Bulgarian, Croatian, Polish, Romani, Ruthenian and Ukrainian.
Slovak
Like Czech or Polish, Slovak belongs to the West Slavic languages. There are many similarities, especially to Czech. Many Czechs and Slovaks can therefore communicate quite well with each other.
Slovak is written with Latin letters (in which we also write German). Some letters can have an extension character: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, ĺ, and ŕ. They have to be pronounced long. Then there is the soft sign, a tick next to ď, ň, ľ and ť. A j is heard behind them in the pronunciation. Finally, there is the open roof at č, dž, š and ž. These are sibilants and are pronounced ch, dsch, sch and sch (as in Gara g e). In total, the Slovak alphabet has 46 letters.
Religions in Slovakia
62 percent of the population belong to the Roman Catholic Church. 8 percent are Protestants. They live mainly in central Slovakia or on the border with the Czech Republic. 3.8 percent are Greek Catholics. They live in the northeast and are mostly Ruthenians. These figures come from the last survey in 2011.