Croatia

Croatia is a country on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, stretching from the Pannonian plain to the Dalmatian coast. Its territory of 56,594 km² (21,851 sq mi) includes more than 1,000 islands and islets. Zagreb is the capital, and Croatian is the official language; with accession in 2013 it also became an official language of the European Union.

Rome held the region from 9 AD, and Emperor Diocletian built a palace at Split, where he retired in 305. Croats arrived in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. Pope John VIII recognized Duke Branimir in 879, and a papal letter of 925 calls Tomislav king. A personal union with Hungary followed in 1102. Venice held most of Dalmatia from 1428, while Dubrovnik kept its own republic, and in 1527 the Croatian parliament chose the Habsburg Ferdinand I to defend against the Ottomans. In 1918 Croatia entered the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and then Yugoslavia. Independence, declared in 1991, was defended in a war lasting until 1995.

Power rests with a prime minister and a single-chamber parliament, the Sabor, beside a president. Croatia joined NATO in April 2009 and the European Union in July 2013 as its 28th member, and belongs to both the eurozone and the Schengen Area. Services and industry form most of the economy, and shipbuilding has grown since the 1800s. New investment goes into liquefied natural gas and geothermal energy. The Pelješac Bridge, opened in July 2022, links the two halves of Dubrovnik-Neretva County.

Plitvice Lakes, the oldest national park in the country, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tourism on the coast peaks in July and August. Slavonia produces mainly white wines and Dalmatia red ones. The Baška tablet from Krk, carved in Glagolitic script around 1100, holds the oldest surviving Croatian prose, and Vatroslav Lisinski wrote the first Croatian opera in 1846. The national football team won silver at the 2018 World Cup and bronze in 1998 and 2022.