Slovaks around the world

From the 1994 Slovak statistics, there were 5,356,207 people living in Slovakia. Of that number, 4,672,527 were of Slovak nationality. But there are other Slovaks living around the world that share the same ancestral home as the Slovaks living in Slovakia.

 There is no single number that can be used in explaining the number of Slovaks living outside of Slovakia or in any one country. There are many reasons that in other countries Slovaks were not separated from other nationalities. The enumeration used in different countries considered emigrants coming from the Austo-Hungarian and later Czecho-Slovakia as Austrians, Hungarians, Czechoslovaks or Slovak nationals. So what is the number of Slovaks living beyond the borders of present day Slovakia. The number varies between 2 and 3 million Slovaks, which would be almost as half again as to the total number of Slovaks living in Slovakia.

How do those numbers break down and what is the history behind so many Slovaks living abroad.

 Slovaks Living abroad

Country              Population

The total based on these numbers (from Ustav Zahranicnich Slovakov of Matica Slovenska) is over 2.5 Million Slovaks. In some countries, it is very difficult to come close to the actual number of Slovaks because the official statistics do not reflect what is believed to be a true picture. One such country is Hungary which is believed to have over 100,000 Slovaks living within its borders, but only 10,000 we accounted for in the last census.

 Why did so many people leave what is today Slovakia. That is a long story and hopefully it and many of its variations can be presented here in the future. In the beginning it was because of lack of available work or food and later because of political reasons, but they are all still Slovaks.

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Last Update: Dec. 21, 1998