Croatia
Republic of Croatia
Hrvatska
Flag of Croatia
three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and blue – the Pan-Slav colors – superimposed by the Croatian coat of arms; the coat of arms consists of one main shield (a checkerboard of 13 red and 12 silver (white) fields) surmounted by five smaller shields that form a crown over the main shield; the five small shields represent five historic regions, they are (from left to right): Croatia, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Istria, and Slavonia the Pan-Slav colors were inspired by the 19th-century flag of Russia
note: the Pan-Slav colors were inspired by the 19th-century flag of Russia
Creative Industries Croatia at Europa Regina
Population:
4,169,239 (2023 est.)
4,208,973 (2021)
4,227,746 (2020)
4,270,480 (2018)
4,292,095 (2017)
Capital: Zagreb
Internet country code: .hr
Government:
Official website: mvep.hr
Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Crafts: mingo.hr
Ministry of Tourism: mint.gov.hr
Statistics Croatia: dzs.hr
Republic of Croatia / Republika Hrvatska
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, along with a majority of Croatia’s ethnic Serb population. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. The country joined NATO in April 2009 and the EU in July 2013.