Croatia

National Name:
Republika Hrvatska

Government
Presidential/parliamentary democracy.

Geography
Croatia is a former Yugoslav republic on the Adriatic Sea. Part of Croatia is a barren, rocky region lying in the Dinaric Alps. The Zagorje region north of the capital, Zagreb, is a land of rolling hills, and the fertile agricultural region of the Pannonian Plain is bordered by the Drava, Danube, and Sava Rivers in the east. Over one-third of Croatia is forested.

Historical Background
The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998.

Capital

Zagreb

Government

Parliamentary republic President Ivo Josipović Prime Minister Jadranka KosorPresident of Parliament Luka Bebić

Language

Croatian

Religion

Roman Catholicism

Literacy Rate

Average life expectancy is 75.1 years,[1] and the literacy rate is  98.1percent

Area

Total 56,594 km2 (126th) 21,851 sq mi

Population

2010 estimate 4,486,881[1] 2001 census 4,437,460[2] Density 81/km2 (115th) 208/sq mi

Currency

Kuna (HRK)

GDP

2010 estimate Total $77.992 billion