Language: Croatian
Currency: Kuna (HRK)
Currency: 385
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a
parliamentary democratic republic, a member of the European Union,
located between Central Europe, southern Europe and the
Mediterranean Sea, borders on the northeast with Hungary, on the
east with Serbia, on the southeast with Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Montenegro, to the northwest with Slovenia and to the southwest with
the Adriatic Sea, where it shares a maritime border with Italy.
Its capital and most populous city is Zagreb. It has 56 594 km²
of territorial extension - this figure includes the more than a
thousand islands that are located off the coast of the Adriatic Sea
- and has a varied climate, mostly continental and Mediterranean. As
for the political administration, the country is divided into twenty
counties and the city of Zagreb. Its population amounts to more than
4.29 million inhabitants, most of them are Croats of Catholic
religion.
At the beginning of the 7th century the Croats
arrived in the area and two centuries later they were organized into
two duchies. In 925 Tomislav became the first king, elevating the
status of the state to a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia maintained
its sovereignty for almost two centuries, and reached its peak
during the reign of Peter Krešimir IV and Demetrio Zvonimir. Croatia
formed a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, threatened by
Ottoman expansion, the Croatian parliament elected Ferdinand I of
Habsburg as successor of the Croatian throne. In 1918, after the
First World War, it was part of the ephemeral Kingdom of the Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, which had been separated from Austria-Hungary,
and which later became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the Second
World War a puppet state of Nazi Germany was founded. After the war,
Croatia was a founding member and federal element of the Second
Yugoslavia, a socialist state. In June 1991, Croatia declared its
independence, which was recognized on October 8 of that year. The
Croatian War of Independence took place in the four years following
the declaration.
In 2012 Croatia maintained a very high Human
Development Index. The International Monetary Fund classified it as
an emerging and developing economy, while the World Bank identified
it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the UN, the
Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization and is a
founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean. In addition, in
July 2013 Croatia acceded to the European Union. As an active member
of the United Nations peacekeeping force, he has contributed troops
to the NATO security mission in Afghanistan and from 2008 to 2009 he
held a seat on the UN Security Council.
The Croatian economy
is dominated by the services sector, followed by industry and
agriculture. Tourism is a major source of income during the summer,
as the country is among the twenty most visited tourist destinations
in the world. The state controls a part of the economy, with
important government spending and its main trading partner is the
European Union. Since 2000 the country has invested in
infrastructure, especially roads and means of transport, as well as
Pan-European corridors. The Croatian State provides a universal
health system and free primary and secondary education, at the same
time that supports the culture through various public institutions
and investments in the media and literature.
Dalmatia (Croatia) |
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Makarska Lastovo Hvar Brač Vis Murter Pašman |
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North- West Croatia (Istria and Kvarner Area) (Croatia) |
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Rijeka Opatija Crikvenica Baška Senj Delnice Fužine |
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Central Croatia (Croatia) |
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Karlovac Krapina Krapinske Toplice Sisak Varaždin Vrbovec |
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US citizens, British, Canadian as well as European Union don't need visa to travel to Croatia if you plan to stay less than 90 days there. However they do require returning plane ticket.
Religion plays an important part in lives of people. Religious affiliations are usually divide down ethnic borders. So 87.8% of the country are Roman Catholic Croats, 4.4% are Eastern Orthodox Serbs. There is also some minor presence of Muslims, Protestants and Jews.
Smoking and drinking on the streets is a normal thing in Croatia. Although certain restriction are applied around certain public, government and other localities.
Police 92
Ambulance 94
Fire 93
The name "Croatia" (Croatian Hrvatska) comes from
medieval Latin Latin. Croatia. The first ruler of an independent
Croatian state, Prince Branimir, who ruled in the 9th century, received
the title of Dux Chroatorum (Prince of the Croats) from Pope John VIII.
The toponym Croātia comes from the ethnonym "Croats", the origin of
which has not yet been precisely established, it is likely that it comes
from the Proto-Slavic -Xŭrvatŭ (Xаrvatъ), which possibly comes from the
Old Persian -xaraxwat.
The oldest surviving record of the
Croatian ethnonym "xъrvatъ" was found on the Bashchanskaya plate and
looks like "zvъnъmir kralъ xrаvatъskъ" ("Zvonimir, the Croatian king").
In the pre-Roman period, several important
pre-Indo-European archaeological cultures existed along the Adriatic
coast, the most ancient of which was the “impressiono”. In the
Bronze Age, descendants of the Impresso culture existed on the
Adriatic coast, among which the Butmir culture stood out for its
ceramics, and later the Castellier culture, of which several hundred
fortified settlements remained. To the beginning of n. e. the whole
territory of modern Croatia (the so-called Liburnia) was conquered
by the Romans (for more information on Roman Illyria, see Illyria
and the Illyrian uprising).
The Slavic tribes of the Croats,
who gave rise to the Croatian nation, migrated to the eastern coast
of the Adriatic Sea in the 7th century. Soon, the Kingdom of Croatia
became one of the strongest in the region. In 1102, the ruling
dynasty of Trpimirovich died away, and the Croatian crown was united
in a dynastic union with the Hungarian. In the middle of the 15th
century, Hungarian rule in the north of the country was replaced by
Turkish, while Dalmatia became part of the Venetian Republic. At the
same time, the Dubrovnik Republic largely maintained independence.
Since 1868, the Croatian state entities within Austria-Hungary have
been the crown land of Dalmatia and the lands of Croatia and
Slavonia as part of Hungary.
In 1526, the successful dynastic
marriage of Ferdinand I of Habsburg brought the Hungarian and
Croatian crowns to the house of the Habsburgs, who ruled Croatia
until the beginning of the 20th century. After the fall of the
Republic of Venice (Campo-Formia Peace 1797), Istria, Dalmatia and
Dubrovnik (Illyrian provinces of Napoleonic France) were added to
the lands of the Habsburg monarchy.
After World War I, in
1918, Croatia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and
Slovenes, although the coastal areas of Austrian Primorye (Istria,
Rijeka, and Zadar) went to Italy under the name of Venice-Julia. In
1929, the state was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. On August 26,
1939, on the basis of the Tsvetkovich – Macchek agreement, Croatia
received autonomy status within the kingdom as a separate banovina.
In 1941, the Ustashi, under the leadership of Ante Pavelic,
created the pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia, which carried out
the genocide of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Also on its territory,
Serbian Chetniks committed massacres of Bosnians and Croats. Under
the onslaught of the communist guerrilla units of Josip Broz Tito,
the Pavelic regime in Croatia and Nedic in Serbia fell and the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the SFRY was formed,
which included six republics: HP Serbia, HP Croatia, HP Slovenia, HP
Macedonia, HP Montenegro and HP Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In
1991, against the backdrop of a sharp intra-republican conflict
between Serbs and Croats, Croatia declared independence. Iceland was
the first to recognize the new country on December 19, 1991. After
the declaration of independence, interethnic clashes in the republic
escalated into a war in Croatia (1991-1995), which lasted until the
end of 1995 (Operation Storm). The declaration of independence by
Croatia and Slovenia marked the beginning of the collapse of the
SFRY. Finally, the integrity of Croatia was restored in 1998. The
first president of the new independent Croatia was Franjo Tudjman.
On January 22, 2012, a referendum was held in Croatia, at which
the majority of voters - 66.25% - voted in favor of the country's
accession to the European Union.
Croatia is located in the south of Central Europe, on
the Balkan Peninsula. The area is 56,594 km², the water area is 33,200
km². There are a large number of islands in the water area, their total
number is 1185, of which 67 are inhabited. The largest islands are Krk
and Cres.
In the north, Croatia borders on Slovenia (600 km), in
the northeast on Hungary (348 km), in the east on Serbia (314 km), in
the south on Bosnia and Herzegovina (956 km) and Montenegro (19 km). The
country consists of two parts: continental, located mainly in the Sava
river basin; and the Adriatic, an elongated narrow strip along the coast
of the Adriatic Sea.
Continental climate prevails in Northern Croatia, semi-mountainous and mountainous in Central Croatia, Mediterranean near the coast. Winter temperatures in the continental part reach an average of -10 °C, in the mountainous areas from -5 °C to 5 °C and from 0 °C to +10 °C in the coastal areas. In summer, it is warmest on the coast (from +25 °C to +30 °C on average), in the resort areas located on the peninsulas (in Istria - from +30 °C). The temperature in the mountains usually does not exceed +15 - +20 °C, and on the continent it is mostly around +25 °C. The least precipitation falls on the islands, approximately 500 to 1000 mm per year. The amount of precipitation on the coast ranges from 1000 to 1700 mm per year.
The territory of Croatia is divided into 20 counties
(Croatian Županije), the counties are divided into 122 cities (Croatian
Gradovi) and 424 communities (Croatian Općine), the capital is divided
into urban areas (Croatian gradske četvrti), large cities are divided
into local parts ( Croatian mjesne odbore). Zagreb, the capital of
Croatia, has the status of the 21st county.
The representative
bodies of the counties are the county assemblies (Cro. Županijska
skupština), elected by the population, the executive bodies are the
Župans (Cro. Župan).
The representative bodies of cities are city
councils (Croatian Gradsko vijeće), elected by the population, the
executive bodies are mayors (Croatian Gradonačelnik).
The
representative bodies of the communities are community councils
(Croatian Općinsko vijeće), elected by the population, the executive
bodies are community leaders (Croatian Općinski načelnik).
The
representative bodies of city districts are the city district council
(Croatian vijeće gradske četvrti), elected by the population, the
executive bodies are the chairmen of the city district councils
(Croatian predsjednik vijeća).
Local parts do not have local
government (with the exception of Split). Until 2001, there was an
intermediate unit between the counties and communities - the district
(Croatian kotar).
Political structure
Croatia is a unitary
state, a parliamentary republic. The legislative body since 2001 is the
Sabor (parliament). Between 1991 and 2001 the parliament was bicameral.
The head of state is the President, who is directly elected for a
term of five years. He is the commander-in-chief of the country's armed
forces and, with the consent of parliament, appoints the prime minister.
The President also deals with foreign policy issues. The last
presidential elections were held on January 5, 2020, and were won by
Zoran Milanovic. He took office on February 18, 2020.
The head of
government is the Prime Minister, since October 19, 2016 this position
has been occupied by Andrei Plenkovich. The government consists of four
vice-premiers and 16 ministers responsible for specific areas of
activity. The government initiates the adoption of laws, develops a
draft budget, controls the implementation of laws, and determines the
main directions of foreign and domestic policy.
The constitution
was adopted on December 20, 1990, independence from Yugoslavia was
proclaimed on June 25, 1991. Amendments to the constitution were
adopted: 1) on the rights of minorities, 2) changing the
semi-presidential model of governance to a parliamentary model of
governance, 3) on parliamentary reform. The parliament is unicameral
(most are elected from party lists, some from minorities). Until 2001,
there was a chamber of districts.
The constitutional oversight body is the
Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud), the body that selects candidates for
the positions of judges is the State Judicial Council (Državno sudbeno
vijeće), prosecutorial oversight bodies are the State Prosecutor's
Office (Državno odvjetništvo), Županijska državna odvjetništva
prosecutors, community prosecutors ( Općinska državna odvjetništva).
General Justice
The highest court is the Supreme Court (Vrhovni
sud), the courts of appeal are the Županijski sudovi courts, the courts
of first instance are the community courts (Općinski sudovi).
Administrative justice
The highest judicial instance of
administrative justice is the Supreme Administrative Court (Visoki
upravni sud), the courts of appeal of administrative justice are
administrative courts (Upravni sudovi).
Trade Justice
The
highest court of commercial justice is the Higher Commercial Court
(Visoki trgovački sud), the courts of appeal of commercial justice are
commercial courts (Trgovački sudovi).
Disciplinary Justice
The
highest court of disciplinary justice is the Higher Disciplinary Court
(Visoki prekršajni sud), the courts of appeal of disciplinary justice
are disciplinary courts (Prekršajni sudovi).
The leading industries are: shipbuilding, mechanical
engineering, chemical, food, textile, woodworking, electrical and
electronic, pharmaceutical industries. Tourism is an important branch of
the economy.
The Keitz index (the ratio of the minimum and
average wages in the country) in Croatia as of 2018 (average 8420 kunas
and minimum 3442.25 kunas) is about 40.8%. From January 1, 2020, the
minimum wage is HRK 4062.51, EUR 543.35 (gross) and HRK 3250.01, EUR
434.68 (net). From January 1, 2021, the minimum wage is HRK 4250, EUR
562.04 (gross) and HRK 3400, EUR 449.44 (net). From January 1, 2022, the
minimum wage is HRK 4687.50, EUR 623.42 (gross) and HRK 3750, EUR 499.22
(net), the Cates index is 48.78%.
In July 2019, the process of
Croatia's accession to the Eurozone began.
Advantages: stable
economic growth. Under the auspices of the IMF, a program has been
launched to reduce government spending. Tourism growth.
Weaknesses: privatization dragging on since 2001 and union resistance.
The damage from the war is about 50 billion dollars. High unemployment
(17.7% as of January 2010).
Transport
Automobile transport
The Croatian motorway network (autocesta) has a length of 1313.8 km. In
2019, Croatia ranked 12th in the world and 6th in Europe in terms of
road quality in the Global Competitiveness Index, compiled annually by
experts from the World Economic Forum. The highest place among all
post-communist countries in the world.
Public transport
The
most common form of public transport in Croatia is the bus. In addition
to buses in large cities (eg Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Pula, etc.)
there is also a network of tram lines (Zagreb and Osijek trams). Tickets
are sold, as a rule, in the passenger compartment of the bus or tram or
at newsstands.
Buses
International bus service in Croatia is
quite developed. Bus routes run to Croatia from many European countries.
Almost all parts of the country are covered by a network of bus
passenger transport. Almost every town has a bus station (Autobusni
Kolodvor) where you can buy tickets and check the schedule.
Water
transport
Between the cities of Croatia, located on the Adriatic
coast, various ferries, ships, hydrofoils run. Most of the inhabited
islands can also be reached by water transport. There are also
international flights. From May 28 to September 30, the summer schedule
operates with more frequent departures.
Airports
Croatia has 6
international airports and 3 civil airports for domestic and charter
flights.
International airports:
Zagreb Airport (17 km from
the center of Zagreb),
Split airport (24 km from the center of
Split),
Dubrovnik Airport (18 km from the city),
Pula Airport (6
km from the center of Pula),
Zadar Airport,
Rijeka airport.
Airports for local and charter flights:
Bol airport
Lošinj
airport
Osijek airport
Croatia's Adriatic coast and numerous islands are a popular destination for international tourism. Tourism in the Adriatic began to develop in the 19th century; in the 20th century, the Croatian coast was one of the most developed tourist destinations in the socialist world. In the 1990s, tourism in Croatia experienced a serious decline, caused by military operations and an outdated tourist infrastructure that did not meet Western quality standards. Since the early 2000s, the tourism industry has shown growth. in the tourism industry in the mid-2010s. accounts for 18% of GNP, which is alarming for economists.
The current Constitution of Croatia defines the
Republic of Croatia "as the national state of the Croatian people and as
the state of representatives of national minorities: Serbs, Bosnians,
Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews, Germans,
Austrians, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Bulgarians, Roma, Romanians, Turks ,
Vlachs, Albanians and others who are its citizens.” The legal status of
the 22 ethnic groups listed in the Constitution is regulated by the
Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities in the Republic
of Croatia, which entered into force in 2002.
The estimated
population as of December 31, 2016 was 4,154,213.
National
composition, according to the 2011 census:
Croats (90.42%),
Serbs
(4.37%),
Bosniaks (0.17%)
Hungarians (0.33%),
Italians (0.42%)
Slovenes (0.25%),
gypsies (0.4%),
Albanians (0.41%)
Czechs
(0.22%)
Macedonians (0.4%)
Montenegrins (0.11%)
others (1.98%).
Religious composition, according to the 2011 census:
Catholics (86.28%),
Orthodox (4.44%)
Protestants (0.34%)
Muslims (1.47%)
atheists and agnostics (4.57%)
other religion or
did not answer (2.9%)
Languages
The official language in
Croatia is Croatian. The official use of languages of ethnic groups
defined by the Constitution as national minorities is allowed, which is
regulated by the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities
in the Republic of Croatia, as well as two laws regarding the use of
languages of national minorities.
In some cities of Istria, the
official status is Italian. In some municipalities and localities, the
official status of the languages \u200b\u200bof national minorities is
fixed - Serbian, Hungarian, Czech and Ruthenian. There are two
endangered Romance languages on the Istrian peninsula - Istro-Roman
and Istro-Romanian.
Croatia has participated in every Olympic Games since
independence and has won 27 medals, 10 at the Winter Olympics. The most
popular sports in the country are football, basketball, handball, water
polo and tennis. Despite the fact that Croatia is considered to be a
southern country with a warm climate, it also popularizes winter sports
such as alpine skiing, ice hockey and biathlon. Brother and sister Ivica
Kostelic and Janica Kostelic have become one of the most famous and
successful skiers of recent years. The Medvescak hockey team from Zagreb
is popular in the capital, playing in the Austrian Hockey League. From
the 2013/2014 season to 2016/2017, she played in the KHL.
The
Croatian national team became the silver medalist of the 2018 FIFA World
Cup, losing in the final to the French team with a score of 2:4.
Midfielder and team captain Luka Modric has been named the 2018 FIFA
Player of the Year for outstanding performance in sports and at the
World Cup. One of the best clubs in Croatia is Dinamo Zagreb.
The official creation date of the Croatian Armed
Forces is November 3, 1991. The first army formations were created on
the basis of the formations of the Croatian National Guard created in
the spring of 1991. At the time of the war in Croatia at the end of 1995
(Operation Storm), their number was more than 250 thousand people. The
total number of armed forces in 2011 was 20 thousand people. (another 3
thousand serve in the police), the number of reservists - 21 thousand
people.
In astronomy
The asteroid (589) Croatia, discovered in
1906 by the German astronomer August Kopff, is named after Croatia.