German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and US Defense Secretary James Mattis will all attend the celebrations in Prague.

Records show that people danced and waved the first national flags in the streets of Prague as sovereignty was proclaimed a hundred years ago, after three centuries under Vienna's rule.

"Czechoslovak people, all you do from now on you do as a new free member of the big family of independent, free nations," said a statement issued by the National Committee issued on that day.

Austria had captured the Czech lands after the 1620 Battle of the White Mountain, which crushed a rebellion by Czech Protestants and resulted in germanisation and a forced return to Catholicism.

Moves towards linguistic, cultural and political emancipation started to gain strength at the end of the 18th century in both the Czech lands and Slovakia, which was dominated by Hungary.

During World War I, the campaign for an independent Czechoslovakia was led by Czechs Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Benes -- who later served as presidents of the country -- and the French-Slovak general Milan Rastislav Stefanik.

Peaceful split

At the end of that war, they persuaded the victorious Britain, France and the United States to approve the creation of the new state.

During World War II, Czechoslovakia was stripped of its western borderland and split into the Bohemian-Moravian Protectorate and the formally independent Slovak state.

It was reunited after the war, only to fall under the Soviet Union until their rule was toppled in the 1989 Velvet Revolution, four years before the country's peaceful split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Macron will visit both capitals on Friday, starting in Bratislava and moving on to Prague.

He and Merkel will meet Andrej Babis, the Slovak-born Czech prime minister, separately on Friday in Prague before travelling to Saturday's summit on Syria with the Turkish and Russian presidents in Istanbul.

Mattis will attend a grand military parade on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump has for his part sent a congratulatory letter to Czech counterpart Milos Zeman, saying the United States "is proud of the role it played in the founding of Czechoslovakia".

After World War I, then US President Woodrow Wilson actively supported small nations seeking independence.

'Common Western bond'

In his landmark "Fourteen Points" speech to the US Congress in early 1918, Wilson backed freedom for nations under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire, as well as imperial Germany and Russia.

"At this time in history, sustaining our common Western bond is more important than ever," wrote Trump, whose ex-wife Ivana is Czech.

On Saturday, Babis will have lunch with several other prime ministers and attend the ceremonial opening of the National Museum after a reconstruction.

The museum at the top of Prague's iconic Wenceslas Square, opened in 1891, has been closed for more than seven years.

On Sunday, Zeman and Babis will meet their Slovak counterparts Andrej Kiska and Peter Pellegrini, respectively, at a wreath-laying ceremony.

That afternoon, a parade of more than 4,000 soldiers and rescuers will be held on a boulevard in northwestern Prague.

The parade will shutter the Prague airport for 90 minutes as the Czech capital will become a no-fly zone, the airport said.