Polabí () is the traditional and informal name for a lowland region located mainly in the

Central Bohemian Region The Central Bohemian Region ( ; ) is an administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the central part of its historical region of Bohemia. Its administrative centre is in the Czech capital Prague, which lies in the centre of the regio ...

of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Etymology

The name comes from

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

''po Labi'', meaning "along the Elbe". The same linguistic construction gave its name to the extinct

Polabian Slavs Polabian Slavs, also known as Elbe Slavs and more broadly as Wends, is a collective term applied to a number of Lechites, Lechitic (West Slavs, West Slavic) tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern Germany. The ...

in today's Germany.

Geography

The region, without clear boundaries, extends along the river

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

, approximately between the towns of

Pardubice Pardubice (; ) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 92,000 inhabitants. It is the capital city of the Pardubice Region and lies on the Elbe River. The historic centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Repub ...

and

Mělník Mělník (; ) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 20,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument zones, urban monument zon ...

, where the Elbe flows together with

Vltava The Vltava ( , ; ) is the longest river in the Czech Republic, a left tributary of the Elbe River. It runs southeast along the Bohemian Forest and then north across Bohemia, through Český Krumlov, České Budějovice, and Prague. It is com ...

. In wider sense, it stretches further westward to the lowland along the

Ohře The Ohře (), also known in English and German as Eger (), is a river in Germany and the Czech Republic, a left tributary of the Elbe River. It flows through the Bavarian district of Upper Franconia in Germany, and through the Karlovy Vary Region ...

river. Its

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

ranges roughly between 150 and 300 metres above sea level.

Agriculture

Polabí is the most fertile part of

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

and the core area, from where the medieval state of the

Czechs The Czechs (, ; singular Czech, masculine: ''Čech'' , singular feminine: ''Češka'' ), or the Czech people (), are a West Slavs, West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common Bohemia ...

developed. It is one of the most important agricultural areas in Central Europe and all the types of vegetables (thermophilic, cold-resistant and frost-resistant) are grown here.

References

Geography of the Central Bohemian Region Geography of the Pardubice Region {{CentralBohemia-geo-stub