There are Slovak minorities in many neighboring countries including Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine and sizeable populations of immigrants and their descendants in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States among others, which are collectively referred to as the Slovak diaspora.

The first written mention of adjective slovenský (Slovak) is in 1294 (ad parvam arborem nystra slowenski breza ubi est meta).

[12] The original name of Slovaks Slověninъ/Slověně was still recorded in Pressburg Latin-Czech Dictionary (the 14th century),[13] but it changed to Slovák under the influence of Czech and Polish (around 1400).

The first written mention of new form in the territory of present-day Slovakia is from Bardejov (1444, "Nicoulaus Cossibor hauptman, Nicolaus Czech et Slowak, stipendiarii supremi").

The Slovaks have also historically been variously referred to as Slovyenyn, Slowyenyny, Sclavus, Sclavi, Slavus, Slavi, Winde, Wende, or Wenden.

Original tribal names are not known due to the lack of written sources before their integration into higher political units.

The first such political unit documented by written sources is the Principality of Nitra, one of the foundations of later common ethnic consciousness.

[16] At this stage in history it is not yet possible to assume a common identity of all ancestors of Slovaks in the neighboring eastern territories, even if it was inhabited by closely related Slavs.

The Principality of Nitra became a part of Great Moravia, a common state of Moravians (Czech ancestors were joined only for a few years).

The relatively short existence of Great Moravia prevented it from suppressing differences which resulted from its creation from two separate entities, and therefore a common "Slovak-Moravian" ethnic identity failed to develop.

In 1722, Michal Bencsik, professor of law at the University of Trnava, published a theory that nobility and burghers of Trenčín should not have same privileges as Hungarians, because they are descendants of Svatopluk's people (inferior to Magyars).

[23] János Karácsonyi assumed that central and northern Slovakia were uninhabited (1901) and in his next work "Our historical right to the territorial integrity of our country" (1921) he claimed that the remainder of the original Slavs were assimilated by Magyars and modern Slovaks are descendants of immigrants from Upper Moravia and Oder (the population density on these territories was too low in that time and large numbers of colonists coming from these areas was not possible[23]).

In 1982, when rich archaeological evidence proving the opposite was already available,[24] a similar theory was published by Hungarian historian György Györffy.

His theory about the lack of population in the greater part of Slovakia covered by forests had already been scientifically refuted by Daniel Rapant (e.g. in O starý Liptov, 1934), and was proven wrong by numerous archaeological finds[note 1] and rejected by Czechoslovak historiography.

[27] The first known Slavic states on the territory of present-day Slovakia were the Empire of Samo and the Principality of Nitra, founded sometime in the 8th century.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of Slovaks emigrated to North America, especially in the late 19th and early 20th century (between cca.

People of Slovakia spent most part of the 20th century within the framework of Czechoslovakia, a new state formed after World War I.

[39] The art of Slovakia can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when some of the greatest masterpieces of the country's history were created.

The most important Slovak composers have been Eugen Suchoň, Ján Cikker, and Alexander Moyzes, in the 21st century Vladimir Godar and Peter Machajdík.

Slovakia is also known for its polyhistors, of whom include Pavol Jozef Šafárik, Matej Bel, Ján Kollár, and its political revolutionaries, such Milan Rastislav Štefánik and Alexander Dubček.

The estimate according to the right-hand site chart yields an approximate population of Slovaks living outside Slovakia of 1.5 million.

Other (much higher) estimates stemming from the Dom zahraničných Slovákov (House of Foreign Slovaks) can be found on SME.