The publication does not differ much by its contents from that brought out last year because our effort is to keep the stability of individual\al chapters and tables so that readers are able to find data they are used to. Modifications made are related especially to acquisition of data from new single-shot statistical surveys. This year, they are especially data from the structural survey on agriculture, also data on public budgets are newly included; slight modifications can be found almost in all chapters. We also responded to territorial changes of 4 regions effective since 1 January 2005. In Chapter 3 – Population and Chapter 12 – Administrative districts, municipalities all data were recalculated to the new territorial structure. More detailed information is available in the methodologies of relevant chapters. We will deal with the problem of recalculations to a comparable territory, however in many cases the recalculations are very difficult or impossible. Besides data on regions you can find here also data available by district and administrative district of municipalities with extended competence, selected data on towns and several indicators on individual municipalities. In the end of the data part of the publication there are time series of development of selected indicators in the Czech Republic in 1993 – 2005.

State statistical surveys are basic data source. Besides data sources of the Czech Statistical Office data from other departments were used, too: especially from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the CR, Ministry of Finance of the CR, Ministry of Interior of the CR, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the CR or the Institute for Information on Education, Ministry of Health of the CR or the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the CR. Considerable part of data published is kept in regional databases called KROK (data on regions and districts) and MOS (community and municipality statistics). Gradually a Public Database (PDB) has also been filling up; it has been available in the CZSO web pages since the beginning of the year.

A regional yearbook, of course, cannot contain all data collected and processed by the state statistics. More detailed data from individual segments of demographic, economic and social development of a region, district, municipality, and micro-regions are brought out in specialized publications (bulletin, publications of demographic character, etc). We would like to bring attention of our readers to the fact that now we are preparing for them a publication “Development of human resources in the Moravskoslezský Region in 2000 – 2005” which describe new analytical views on selected areas of life in the region.

Besides the printed form, all publications are available also in an electronic form and on a CD-ROM; a great deal of information is provided also at regional web pages of the CZSO (www.ostrava.czso.cz), at which we make available to the public not only the most update results of statistical surveys, but also information on our own activity.

The reason why statistical information is acquired and processed is knowledge, seeking for tendencies in development and, moreover, its utilisation in practice. Long-term practice with the interest of users in information in regional breakdown, which has been markedly increasing recently, makes us believe that the regional statistical yearbook will continue to be a sought-after information source both for professional and general public. Of course, we will welcome your prospective suggestions and comments regarding the contents of the yearbook; they will be a valuable contribution during preparation of regional publications in 2007.

We express our thanks to all authors and colleagues for the effort and time they devoted to preparation of the contents as well as technical part of this publication.