Mailbox

In today's Mailbox: Major cities, political parties and religions in the Czech Republic. Listeners quoted: Alexander Payne, Abdulkarim Ahmed Ali, Kalub.

Hello and thanks for tuning in to Mailbox, Radio Prague’s weekly letters programme. First up we have these questions from Alexander Payne from England who attached them to his reception report:

“What are the other major cities of the Czech Republic? How big is the Czech Republic?”

The Czech Republic is divided up into 14 regions including the capital city Prague. The other regional capitals are in alphabetical order: Brno, České Budějovice, Hradec Králové, Jihlava, Karlovy Vary, Liberec, Olomouc, Ostrava, Pardubice, Plzeň, Ústí nad Labem, and Zlín.

To answer your second question: the Czech Republic occupies 78,867 square kilometres, which is over 30 thousand square miles, and has 10.5 million citizens.

Abdulkarim Ahmed Ali from Libya wants to know:

“How many political parties are there in the Czech Republic?”

Currently, there are 83 political parties and 44 political movements registered by the Interior Ministry. But not all of them are active. Only five parties are represented in the lower house of Czech Parliament and seven in the upper house, the Senate.

And our listener Kalub also has a general question concerning this country:

“What religions do you have in the Czech Republic?”

It is difficult to say how many religions there are because people are free to practice whatever faith they choose. As for the registered churches and religious societies: there are 25 various Christian churches in the Czech Republic. The non-Christian ones include the Federation of Jewish communities, the Centre of Muslim communities, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Vajrayāna Buddhism and Vishwa Nirmala Dharma. There are also a number of churches which are not registered but have practicing members and hold services, such as the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army and Scientology.

Thank you for those questions and please keep them coming along with your reception reports and answers to our monthly listeners’ quiz. And here’s the question for this month:

In October we are looking for the name of a Czech-American jazz guitarist who was born in 1960 in Prague and since the 1980s has been living in the West, performing and also teaching.

Your answers need to reach us at [email protected] or Radio Prague, 12099 Prague by the end of October. Mailbox will be back again next week, same time, same frequency. Until then, happy listening.