Four countries surround the Czech Republic (Czechia): Germany to the west and north-west, Poland to the north and north-east, Slovakia to the east and Austria to the south. The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs puts the total length of these land borders at 2,290.7 km, of which Germany accounts for 810.3 km, Poland 761.8 km, Austria 466.3 km and Slovakia 252.3 km, making Slovakia, not Austria, the shortest. Czechia is landlocked, so it has no sea neighbours. All four neighbours belong to the European Union and the Schengen Area, so since 21 December 2007 there have been no routine passport checks on any of these lines. That openness is recent: for four decades two of them formed part of the Iron Curtain, and one did not exist as an international border until 1993.
The borders largely follow a rim of low mountains around the Bohemian basin, the Ore Mountains, the Sudetes and the Bohemian Forest, which is why the country’s highest point, Sněžka (1,603 m), and its lowest, the Elbe at Hřensko (115 m), both sit on the frontier. The CIA World Factbook uses an older, lower total of 1,881 km; the chart uses the ministry’s figures.
Šumava, the Ore Mountains and the Elbe gorge: the 810 km German frontier
The German border is the longest, an arc running from the Austrian tripoint in the south-west to the Polish tripoint near Zittau in the north. It is one of the oldest lines in Europe: it follows the edge of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became the boundary between the German Empire and the Austrian Empire.
Its southern half, facing Bavaria, crosses the Bohemian Forest, called Šumava in Czech, which carries the most extensive forest in Central Europe. Šumava became a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1990 and a national park in 1991, and it adjoins the smaller Bavarian Forest National Park across the line. Further north, the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory, Erzgebirge) separate the Czech regions of Karlovy Vary and Ústí nad Labem from Saxony. Near Hřensko, on the edge of Bohemian Switzerland National Park, the Elbe (Labe) leaves the country through sandstone gorges at the lowest point in Czechia, 115 m above sea level, on its way to Dresden and Hamburg. A historical link survives at the river’s mouth: under the Treaty of Versailles Czechoslovakia was given a lease on the Moldauhafen, a 30,000 m² lot in the Port of Hamburg, which reverts to Germany in 2028.
The 20th century left deep marks on this border. After the Second World War most ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia; in 1946 an estimated 1.3 million were deported to the American zone of Germany and about 800,000 to the Soviet zone. A 2020 study found that the expulsion triggered a depopulation and de-urbanisation of the border areas. From 1945 to 1990 the section facing West Germany was part of the Iron Curtain, fenced and closely guarded, while the section facing East Germany was a border between two Soviet-bloc states.
Today the traffic is heavy and largely invisible. One of the busiest road crossings in the country is Rozvadov–Waidhaus, where the German A6 autobahn meets the Czech motorway network. The D8 motorway from Prague runs through Ústí nad Labem to the border at Petrovice and continues as the A17 to Dresden, following the old route over the Ore Mountains. Passport checks ended in December 2007, and the last limits on Czechs working in Germany expired in April 2011.
Sněžka, Cieszyn and the 1958 “border debt” with Poland
The 762 km Polish border runs south-east through the Sudetes from the German tripoint to the meeting point with Slovakia at Jaworzynka in the Silesian Beskids. In order, it climbs the Jizera Mountains, follows the main ridge of the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše), passes the Stołowe and Orlické mountains and Králický Sněžník, where the Morava rises, then the Golden Mountains, before descending into the valleys of the Opava, the Oder (Odra) and the Olza. Paired towns line it: Harrachov and Szklarska Poręba, Náchod and Kudowa-Zdrój, Krnov, Opava, Karviná, and Český Těšín facing Cieszyn.
Sněžka, at 1,603.3 m, is the high point of both the Giant Mountains and the whole Sudetes, and its summit is shared: the border runs across the top, so the same mountain is the highest point of Czechia and of Poland’s Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It has drawn climbers since at least 1456, when an unnamed Venetian merchant searching for precious stones made the first recorded ascent.
Apart from 1939 to 1945, the line has stayed close to where the post-1918 treaties put it, though the country on the far side has changed. Before 1945 much of this stretch faced German Silesia; it became the Czechoslovak–Polish border when the Oder–Neisse line moved Silesia into Poland. At the eastern end, Cieszyn Silesia was divided in July 1920 by the Spa Conference, splitting the old town of Cieszyn along the Olza: the smaller western suburbs became Český Těšín in Czechoslovakia, the larger part stayed Polish. Three bridges connect them, and since Schengen residents walk across freely. The settlement after the First World War also brought the Hlučín Region, until then part of German Silesia, into Czechoslovakia. Since 1994 a Polish–Czech intergovernmental committee has existed to promote cross-border cooperation and handle disputes along the line, including the long-running question of the border debt described below.
One piece of business remains unsettled. In 1958 the two states swapped land to straighten the border, Poland handing over 1,205.9 hectares and receiving 837.46. The difference, about 368 hectares, is still known in Poland as the “border debt”. A Czech plan of 2015 to repay it with state land was withdrawn, and as of October 2025 the debt was still outstanding.
The Velvet Divorce line: Slovakia since 1 January 1993
At 252 km, the shortest border is also the youngest. Until 31 December 1992 it was an internal line between the Czech and Slovak republics of Czechoslovakia, and it became international on 1 January 1993 when the federation dissolved peacefully. The new frontier followed the existing internal boundary, which in places cut across roads, fields and communities. Among the most serious cases were the hamlet of U Sabotů, also called Šance, historically part of Moravia but awarded to Slovakia in 1997, and Sidonie, historically Hungarian, which went to the Czech Republic the same year; the two governments settled such problems with negotiation, financial compensation and a border treaty.
The terrain is gentle compared with the north. From the Polish tripoint the line runs south through the Javorníky hills and then the White Carpathians (Bílé Karpaty), whose highest summit, Velká Javořina, reaches 970 m and which are protected on both sides, as Biele Karpaty in Slovakia since 1979. In the far south the border drops to the lower Morava, which divides the two countries downstream of Hodonín as far as its confluence with the Thaya, where Austria begins. The D2 motorway from Brno, completed in 1980 as part of a planned Prague–Brno–Bratislava route, crosses here on European route E65; only 61 km of it remained in the Czech Republic after the split.
The economic separation was gradual. A customs union lasted from the dissolution until both countries joined the EU on 1 May 2004, citizens could cross with ID cards rather than passports, and checks disappeared altogether on 21 December 2007. Surveys in March 1993 suggested that about half the population would have voted against the split had there been a referendum.
Temelín, the Thaya and the old Iron Curtain on the Austrian side
The 466 km Austrian border runs east from the German tripoint in the Šumava, passing the southernmost point of the Czech Republic near Studánky in Vyšší Brod municipality, then crosses the uplands of southern Bohemia and Moravia into the wine country along the Thaya, called the Dyje in Czech. It ends at the Thaya’s confluence with the Morava, the meeting point with Slovakia. For long stretches it separates South Bohemia and South Moravia from Upper and Lower Austria.
Along the Thaya the border runs through a deep, forested valley protected on both banks: Podyjí National Park, created on 1 July 1991 and covering 63 km², adjoins Austria’s Thayatal National Park, and the two are promoted together as an “Inter-National park”. The river’s name in both languages is thought to come from an old word meaning “rushing river”, and its first written mention dates from 985.
Like the Bavarian section, this was a Cold War frontier, sealed with fences and watchtowers between communist Czechoslovakia and neutral Austria. A stretch of fence and a watchtower still stand at Čížov, across the Thaya from Austria’s Hardegg, and the empty strip along the old line is now part of the European Green Belt of habitats that grew up where people were kept out.
The sharpest recent dispute concerned energy. The Temelín nuclear power station in South Bohemia drew strong Austrian opposition, and in September and October 2000 Austrian anti-nuclear protesters temporarily blocked all 26 border crossings between the two countries. The Melk Protocol, signed on 12 December 2000 by Czech prime minister Miloš Zeman and Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, committed Prague to extra safety procedures and Vienna to keeping the border open. For how each of these neighbours looks from its own side, see the countries that border Germany, the countries that border Poland and the countries that border Austria.