The Czech national identity card is the identity document

Identity document

An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...

 used in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 (and formerly in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

), in addition to the Czech passport

Czech passport

The Czech passport is issued to Czech citizens at any age, and is the primary document of international travel issued by the Czech Republic. The passport, along with the national identity card allows for free rights of movement and residence in any of the states of the European Union and European...

. It is issued to all citizens above 15 years of age, and every such person permanently living in the Czech Republic is required by law to hold a valid identity card.

Since 1 January 2006, it has been possible for citizens of the Czech Republic to travel anywhere within the Schengen Area

Schengen Area

The Schengen Area comprises the territories of twenty-five European countries that have implemented the Schengen Agreement signed in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, in 1985...

 and some other European countries such as Macedonia using only this card.

History

The first mandatory identity document was introduced during the German occupation

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...

, on 17 March 1939 in a decree made by Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath

Konstantin von Neurath

Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat remembered mostly for having served as Foreign minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938...

. This document was based on the model of a similar document already in use in the Third Reich and included a photograph. Known as a legitimace, it was often nicknamed kennkarta.

During the communist regime (1948–89

History of Czechoslovakia

With the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed, encouraged by, among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson...

) this simple card developed into a booklet dozens of pages long. It contained such personal details as employment history and vaccination

Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

 records.

Requirements

To acquire the card, one must present a filled out application, one photograph if the průkaz is of the machine readable type or two photographs if it is not of the machine readable type
and if this is an application for a renewal the previous průkaz, otherwise a birth certificate and proof of citizenship.

Photograph

The photograph(s) must be 35x45 mm, correspond to the current look of the person, show the person looking forwards with the distance from the eyes to the chin at least 13 mm, in civil clothes, without dark glasses (except the blind), without any head cover (except for health/religious reasons, then it cannot cover the face in a way that makes the person difficult to distinguish). The photograph must be smooth.

Front side

• Surname
• First name
• Date of birth
• Birth number
• Nationality (Česká republika)
• Date of expiration

Back side

• Place of birth
• Permanent address
• Birth name
• Marital status
• Other data
• Academic degree
• Issuing authority and date of issue

External links

• The Ministersvo Vnitra page on občanský průkaz