Czechoslovakia, as a country name

Cause of death

Killed by regulation

The federal parliament passed a constitutional act dissolving the state at the end of the year.

Czechoslovakia dissolved on the last day of 1992 into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, by legislation, on schedule, without a referendum and without a shot fired. It is the standard example of a country ending quietly, and it is called the Velvet Divorce in deliberate echo of the Velvet Revolution three years earlier. Polling at the time suggested most citizens of both halves would have preferred to stay together.