Prague is the capital city of the Czech Republic, located on the river Vltava in the northwest of the country. It is also the historical capital of the region of Bohemia, and was the capital of Czechoslovakia during the period of that nation’s existence between 1918 and 1993. Prague has long been a cultural, political, and economic European city. It was the seat of several Holy Roman Emperors and crucial to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was the site of the Prague Spring, an attempt to introduce reforms to Soviet rule in 1968, and of the Velvet Revolution, a series of demonstrations against Communist Party rule in 1989.