Croatia Map

• On January 1, 1527, Croatian noblemen gathered in the Cetin fortress in the city of Cetingrad for the Parliament on Cetin and elected Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria as the new king of the Croatian kingdom. Croatia of that time was named a triune kingdom: the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Dalmatia, and the Kingdom of Slavonia. The kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia united in 1868, creating the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia.

• The Croatian answer to the Hungarian revolution of 1848 was a declaration of war. Austrian, Croatian and Russian forces together defeated the Hungarian army in 1849 and the following 17 years were remembered in Croatia and Hungary for the policy of Germanization. The eventual failure of this policy resulted in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the creation of a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The treaty left unanswered the question of the status of Croatia. The following year the Croatian and Hungarian parliaments created a constitution for union of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and the Kingdom of Hungary.

• After the Ottoman Empire lost military control over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary abolished Croatian Krajina and Slavonian Krajina, restoring the territories to Croatia in 1881. During the second half of the 19th century pro-Hungarian and pro-Austrian political parties played Croats against Serbs with the aim of controlling the parliament. This policy failed in 1906 when a Croat-Serb coalition won the elections. The newly created political situation remained unchanged until the advent of World War I.

• Following the extinction of the Croatian ruling dynasty in 1091, Ladislaus I of Hungary, the brother of Jelena Lijepa, the last Croatian queen, became the king of Croatia. Croatian nobility of the Littoral opposed this crowning, which led to 10 years of war and the recognition of the Hungarian ruler Coloman as the king of Croatia and Hungary in the treaty of 1102 (often referred to as the Pacta conventa). In return, Coloman promised to maintain Croatia as a separate kingdom, not to settle Croatia with Hungarians, to guarantee Croatia's self-governance under a Ban, and to respect all the rights, laws and privileges of the Croatian Kingdom. During this union, the Kingdom of Croatia never lost the right to elect its own king, had the ruling dynasty become extinct. In 1293 and 1403 Croatia chose its own king, but in both cases the Kingdom of Hungary declared war and the union was reestablished.

• For the next four centuries, the Kingdom of Croatia was ruled by the Sabor and Bans appointed by the Hungarian king. The Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia remained a legally distinct constitutional entity, but the advent of a Hungarian king brought about other consequences such as: the introduction of feudalism and the rise of native noble families such as the Frankopans and the Šubićs. The 1273 Congregatio Regni tocius Sclavonie Generalis, the oldest surviving document written by the Croatian parliament, dates from this period.

• Subsequent kings sought to restore some of their previously lost influence by granting certain privileges to towns. The first period of personal union between Croatia and Hungary ended in 1526 with the Battle of Mohács and the defeat of Hungarian forces by the Ottomans. After the death of King Louis II, Croatian nobles at the Cetingrad assembly chose the Habsburgs as new rulers of the Kingdom of Croatia, under the condition that they provide the troops and finances required to protect Croatia against the Ottoman Empire.

• Croatia's 2001 census recorded a total population of 4,437,460. The last official estimate from 2009 shows a little decrease to 4,429,078.

• Croatia is inhabited mostly by Croats (89.6%), while minority groups include Serbs (4.5%), Bosniaks, Hungarians, Italians, Slovenes, Germans, Czechs, Romani people and others (5.9%). For most of the 20th century, the population of Croatia has been rising from 3,430,270 in 1931 to 4,784,265 in 1991. The natural growth rate of the population is currently negative with the demographic transition completed in the 1970s.

• Average life expectancy is 75.1 years, and the literacy rate is 98.1 percent. During recent years, the Croatian government is pressured each year to add 40% to work permit quotas for foreign workers and in accordance with its immigration policy it is trying to entice emigrants to return. The main religions of Croatia are Roman Catholic 88%, Orthodox 4.4%, other Christian 0.4%, Muslim 1.3%, other and unspecified 0.9%, none 5.2%.

• During the last decade of the 20th century the population of Croatia has been stagnating because of the Croatian War of Independence. During the war, large sections of the population were displaced and emigration increased. In 1991, in predominantly Serb areas, more than 400 000 Croats and other non-Serbs were either removed out of their homes by the Croatian Serb forces or fled the violence. During the final days of the war in 1995, more than 120,000 Serbs, and perhaps as many as 200,000 fled before the victory by Croatian forces.

• Only a small fraction of Serbs have returned to their homes since 1995, according to Human Rights Watch. Most of Croatia's remaining Serbs do not live in the highlands and inland of Dalmatia but rather in the Croatian heartland and major cities. Serbs have been only partially re-settled by the Croatian Government in the regions they previously inhabited (i.e., the blue areas of the map here). Many of the towns previously settled by Serbs were settled by Croat refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly from Republika Srpska.

• Privatization and the drive toward a market economy had barely begun under the new Croatian Government when war broke out in 1991. As a result of the war, the economic infrastructure sustained massive damage, particularly the revenue-rich tourism industry. From 1989 to 1993, GDP fell 40.5%. With the end of the war in 1995, tourism and Croatia's economy recovered moderately. However, corruption, cronyism, and a general lack of transparency stymied meaningful economic reform, as well as much-needed foreign investment.

• Croatia's economy turned the corner in 2000 as tourism rebounded. The economy expanded in 2002, stimulated by a credit boom led by newly privatized and foreign-capitalized banks, some capital investment, most importantly road construction, further growth in tourism, and gains by small and medium-sized private enterprises.

• Croatia has a high-income market economy. International Monetary Fund data shows that Croatian nominal GDP stood at $69.357 billion, or $15,633 per capita, at the same time in 2008 purchasing power parity GDP was $82.407 billion or $18,575 per capita.

• According to Eurostat data, Croatian PPS GDP per capita stood at 63.2 percent of the EU average in 2008. Real GDP growth in 2007 was 6.0 per cent. and at the same time average gross salary of a Croatian worker during the first nine months of 2008 was 7,161 kuna (US$ 1,530) per month In 2007, the International Labour Organization-defined unemployment rate stood at 9.1 per cent, after falling steadily from 14.7 percent in 2002. The registered unemployment rate is higher, though, standing at 13.7 percent in December 2008.

• In 2009, economic output was dominated by the service sector which accounted for 73,6% percent of GDP, followed by the industrial sector with 20,5% and agriculture accounting for 5,9% of GDP. According to 2004 data, 2.7% of the workforce were employed in agriculture, 32.8% by industry and 64.5 in services.

• The industrial sector is dominated by shipbuilding, food processing, pharmaceuticals, information technology, biochemical and timber industry. Tourism is a notable source of income during the summers, with over 11 million foreign tourists in 2008 generating a revenue of €8 billion. Croatia is ranked as the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world. In 2008, Croatia exported goods to the value of $14.4 billion (FOB) ($26.4 billion including service exports).

• The Croatian state still controls a significant part of the economy, with government expenditure accounting for as much as 40% of GDP. Some large, state-owned industries, such as the country's shipyards, continue to rely on government subsidies but with EU membership looming, Croatia is forced to restructure debt ridden shipyards as it is a prerequisites for Croatia before it joins the EU. Subsidies for loss making industries also reduce needed investments in to education and technology needed to ensure the economy's long-term competitiveness.

• Of particular concern is the backlogged judiciary system, combined with inefficient public administration, especially issues of land ownership and corruption. Another main problem includes the large and growing national debt which has reached over 34 billion euro or 89.1% of the nations gross domestic product. Because of these problems, studies show that the population of Croatia generally has negative expectations of the country's economic future.

• Croatia has so far weathered the global financial crisis reasonably well, but faces significant challenges in 2010 largely due to Croatia's external imbalances and high foreign debt, which in longer term presents problems for Croatian financial sector due to higher cost of borrowing to cover current account deficit.

• The country has been preparing for membership in the European Union, its most important trading partner. In February 2005, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU officially came into force and by the end of 2009 Croatia has closed 17 EU accessions chapters, with remaining 16 to be completed by the end of first half of 2010. Croatia is expected to join the EU on 1 July 2013.

• The Croats arrived in what is today Croatia probably in the early 7th century. They organized into two dukedoms; the duchy of Pannonia in the north and the duchy of Littoral Croatia in the south. Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote that Porga, Duke of the Dalmatian Croats, who had been invited into Dalmatia by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, sent to Heraclius for Christian teachers.

• According to Constantine, at the request of Heraclius, Pope John IV (640–642) sent Christian teachers and missionaries to the Croatian Provinces. These missionaries converted Porga, and also a great many of the clan that was under his immediate authority, to the Christian faith in 640. The Christianization of the Croats was mostly complete by the 9th century. Both duchies became Frankish vassals in late 8th century, and eventually became independent in the following century.

• The first native Croatian ruler recognized by the Pope was duke Branimir, whom Pope John VIII called dux Croatorum ("duke of Croats") in 879. Duke Tomislav of Littoral Croatia was one of the most prominent members of the House of Trpimirović. He united the Croats of Dalmatia and Pannonia into a single Kingdom in 925. Traditionally it is stated that Tomislav's state extended from the Adriatic Sea to the Drava river, and from the Raša river to the Drina river, but the precise borders are unknown. Under his rule, Croatia became one of the most powerful kingdoms in Medieval Europe.

• Tomislav defeated the invasions of the Árpáds in battle and forced them across the Drava. He also annexed a part of Pannonia. This included the area between the rivers Drava, Sava and Kupa, so his Duchy bordered with Bulgaria for a period of time. This was the first time that the two Croatian Realms were united, and all Croats were in one state. The union was later recognised by Byzantium, which gave the royal crown to Stjepan Držislav and papal crown to king Zvonimir. The medieval Croatian kingdom reached its peak during the reign of Kings Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074) and Zvonimir (1075–1089).

• The Kingdom of Croatia existed from its foundation in 925 until the end of World War I, initially as an independent kingdom and later as a crown in multiethnic empires such as the High Kingdom of Hungary, the Habsburg monarchy and Austria-Hungary.