Největší Čech (The Greatest Czech) is the Czech spin-off of the BBC Greatest Britons show; a television poll of the populace to name the greatest Czech in history. The series was broadcast by the national public-service broadcaster, Česká televize. The moderator of the programme was Marek Eben, who was also nominated to be in the Top 100; however, since he was moderating the show he was not eligible to be included in the final list.

The counting and ranking of the nomination votes took place during January 2005; the top 100 were announced on 5 May; and the final rankings were announced on 10 June 2005. Many voices received the fictional genius Jára Cimrman but he was disqualified.

At the same time as the nominations, an Internet vote for the greatest villain of Czech history was held. The top ten were:

The first round of official voting for Greatest Czech was won by the fictional character Jára Cimrman created by Czech humourists Jiří Šebánek, Zdeněk Svěrák (who himself took the 25th place) and Ladislav Smoljak (79th). The fact that he isn't a real person disqualified him from taking the title. Česká televize disregarded the rules, which clearly stated, that "it is only possible to vote for someone who was either born on, lived on, or in any way acted on the soil of Bohemia, Moravia or Czech Silesia." While Cimrman neither lived, nor was born in any of these countries, he indisputably acted (since 1966) and acts on the mentality of local people.