Slovenský skauting (Scouting Slovakia), is the primary national Scouting and Guiding organization of Slovakia. Currently has around 7000 members. With 3,157 Scouts (as of 2011) and about 3,000 Guides (as of 2004). Slovenský Skauting is the largest youth organization in Slovakia and a member of both the World Organization of the Scout Movement and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. History The first Scout troop in the area that comprises Slovakia, while under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was founded in 1912. Scouting in Slovakia started in connection with Hungarian Scouting as Slovakia was, at the time, economically and socially linked more closely with the Hungarian parts of the Empire. From the start, Scouting in Czechoslovakia was open to boys and girls working in separate units. Groups of Girl Scouts began to form between 1918 and 1922 in various towns. In 1919 the Association of the Scouts and Guides of the Republic of Czechoslovakia was founded, and the association became a founder member of WAGGGS in 1928. Girl Scouting grew and progressed until 1939. As part of the fledgling Czechoslovakia, Slovakia was a Founding Member of WOSM from 1922 to 1948, with an interstice in which Scouting ceased to exist as a result of Nazi German occupation in 1940, when the government banned Scouting. After World War II and the 1944 national uprising, Scouting reemerged and was recognized by the state of Czechoslovakia. During the later period of Soviet dominance, like the neighboring Czech Republic and Hungary, Scouting went underground to reemerge under more suitable conditions. After the November 1989 Velvet Revolution, Scouting was one of the first organisations to re-emerge from working underground. By the close of 1989, the number of Scouts in Czechoslovakia was 80,000. On February 1, 1990, the Federation of Czech and Slovak Scouting was officially registered, paving the way for its re-admittance to the World Organization during the World Scout Conference in Paris in July 1990, re-recognised by the major world Scouting organisations. Slovak Scouting returned as part of federated Scouting in Czechoslovakia from 1990 to 1992. Upon Czechoslovakia's dissolution on December 31, 1992, Slovenský Skauting and Cesky Junák were required to apply for membership of the World Organization as the national member organizations of the Republic of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, respectively. Slovakia was welcomed as a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in its own right since 1997.