"Czech Republic", the proper name for the country, is a real mouthful. Has a shortened version or another name come into use by its residents?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic, there is a section on the name of the country.

I have a friend in the Czech Republic who consistently refers to his country as CZECH (dropping "Republic&quot.

Well, aside from the fact that it only has 4 syllables (no more than United States, and much less than United States of America!), I'm not sure how many people in the Czech Republic actually call it the Czech Republic, unless they're speaking English

The CIA Factbook gives:
conventional long form: Czech Republic
conventional short form: Czech Republic
local long form: Ceska Republika
local short form: Cesko

I don't think it's a mouthful that much, and don't really say it that often to worry about it -- but if you are talking amongst people who generally know what you are referring to, you could just use the initials, I suppose (CR).

How about Bohemia?

Bohemia is just half of the country, the other (Eastern) half would be Moravia. The problem, as far as I understand it, derives from German... Czechoslovakia had a "proper" name in all languages, but when the Czech Republic constituted itself, they absolutely wanted to prevent German speakers (their most important neighbours: Germany and Austria!) from translating "Cesko" (which would be the Czech "short" name) into "Tschechei". This is in fact proper German (like Slowakei for Slovensko/Slovakia), but during the Nazi occupation, it became a contemptuous term somehow, almost a four-letter word, so Czechs nowadays consider it a serious offense if somebody refers to the country as "Tschechei"... which would be Czechia in English. In German, the problem is being "resolved" by calling the country Tschechien (like Italien/Italy), but linguistically, this is an invention without a historic basis. I'm quite sure this is the reason why they decided to call the country Ceska Republika, Czech Republic, just to avoid the contemptuous German translation.

Well done, franco.

How about if we refer to it as CR?

i worked on a project in prague with french people who called it "czechie". it seemed to work well and it stuck with me.

I was corrected/reprimanded by a Czech for not using the whole name, Czech Republic, while in Prague.

Be assureds that if you arrive here, you do NOT have to refer to the place as 'The Commonwealth of Australia'!

In Switzerland, they still say "Die Tschechei". Definitely CR, not Czech Republik and not Cesko.

Slovakia is Slovakei.

Nice explanation Franco.

I live in Czech Republik (Ceska republika) short Czech (Cesko). Czech Republik = Bohemia (Cechy), Moravia (Morava) and Silesia (Slezsko).

My friend from Prague calls it "Czecholand"

Yup, and we still say "Tschechei" in Germany. And how do you think do we call the people who live there? Tschechen, of course! If we'd say "Tschechien" it would be "Tschechier" for the people there and that would mean I'd get a knot in my tongue! LOL

On the west coast of Canada/US, "C.R." is a common short form for Costa Rica.