Czech Republic Geography & Climate

Czechia covers about 79,000 square kilometres in central Europe, landlocked between Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Poland, and its shape is dictated by the mountains that ring it almost completely.

The Bohemian basin

Western Czechia is a plateau enclosed by the Sumava and Bohemian Forest along the Bavarian border, the Ore Mountains in the north-west, and the Krkonose in the north-east, which hold the highest point at Snezka, 1,603 metres. The interior is rolling farmland, forest and fishponds — the south Bohemian pond system around Trebon was engineered in the sixteenth century and is still worked.

Moravia

The eastern half is lower and more open, drained by the Morava river toward the Danube, with the Carpathian foothills rising along the Slovak border and the vineyards of the south around Mikulov and Znojmo.

Rivers to three seas

Czechia sits on a major European watershed. The Elbe and Vltava run north to the North Sea, the Morava and Dyje south to the Danube and the Black Sea, and the Oder north-east to the Baltic. Almost no water flows into the country — it all starts here, which makes the country unusually exposed to drought.

Sandstone and karst

The Elbe sandstone country in the north has been eroded into towers, gorges and natural arches. The Moravian Karst near Brno holds more than a thousand caves and the Macocha abyss.

Coal and industry

The Ostrava basin in the north-east and the brown-coal country of the north-west carry the environmental legacy of heavy industry.

Czechia has a temperate continental climate, sitting at the transition between the maritime weather of western Europe and the harsher continental pattern further east, which means the seasons are distinct and the year-to-year variation is considerable.

Summer

June to August averages 23 to 27°C in the lowlands, with heatwaves now regularly pushing above 35°C. Afternoon thunderstorms are common and can be violent. Prague in a July heatwave is genuinely uncomfortable, since older buildings have no air conditioning.

Winter

December to February hovers around freezing in the lowlands and well below it in the mountains, with grey overcast that can last for weeks — the low winter sun and the inversions that trap haze in the Bohemian basin are the least pleasant thing about the country. Snow is reliable above about 700 metres and intermittent in Prague.

Spring and autumn

April and May warm quickly and the countryside is at its best; September and October are often clear and mild, with the Moravian vineyards in harvest.

Altitude

The difference between the Elbe lowlands at 150 metres and Snezka at 1,603 is substantial — the mountain ranges are several degrees colder, hold snow into April, and have their own weather.

What it means for a visit

Two practical consequences catch people out. Castles and chateaux — the single biggest category of thing to see here — mostly open only from April to October, and many close entirely from November. And the summer heat lands hard in a building stock designed for the opposite problem, so an August hotel room without air conditioning is worth checking for rather than assuming.

Drought

Because every major river rises within the country and none flows in, Czechia depends entirely on what falls on it. Recent decades have brought serious droughts alongside severe flooding on the Vltava and Elbe, most destructively in 2002.