The crowning of the Croatian king Tomislav, Oton Iveković (detail, 1904-1905). Tomislav was crowned as the first Croatian king in 925.

In 1990 Croatia was, with Slovenia and the Czech Republic, among the most developed Central European transition countries. However, its economic development was burdened by significant war damage, estimated at $37.1 billion, which made its transition to a market economy more difficult. The level of pre-war GDP (1990) was only reached again in 2004, and today’s GDP per capita amounts to 61% of the EU average (2012). The kuna, the national currency, was introduced in 1994.

Kornati National Park (1980), south of Šibenik and Zadar, encompasses an archipelago of about one hundred islands and islets. Enchanted by the beauty of its landscape, the Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw wrote: 'On the last day of the Creation, God desired to crown His work and thus created Kornati Islands out of tears, stars and breath'.

Grassalkovich Palace in Bratislava, today the residence of the president of Slovakia, was built in 1760 for Count Antal Grassalkovich, a Croatian noble serving as the head of the Hungarian Chamber. This palace is the largest and most important Baroque building in Slovakia.

Concept One by the Croatian company Rimac Automobili, the world's fastest electric car. It reaches 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds and tops 300 km/h.

Relief

Although the land area of Croatia is not large (56,594 km², 19th in size among the countries of the European Union), it has an extremely varied relief, as it adjoins several large European relief forms. There are three main types of relief in Croatia...

Theatre and ballet

The earliest examples of theatrical life in Croatia, as in other Western countries, were liturgical dramas in Latin. However, secular theatre appeared as early as the beginning of the 14th century in Dubrovnik, which over the next centuries emerged as the ...

Regions

The region of modern Croatia covers a large number of historical and geographical regions of different origins and size. These reflect the political fragmentation of the Croatian lands in the past, and partly also the position of Croatia at the meeting-point ...

The Diaspora

Among European countries, Croatia has one of the most marked and longest traditions of emigration. The first great waves of emigration began as far back as the 15th century, due to the Ottoman threat from the southeast. The results of such ...

Climate

Thanks to its position in the moderate climate belt along the 45th parallel, Croatia enjoys a predominantly moderate climate, with four clearly marked seasons. Local climate differences are determined primarily by the diversity of the relief ...

Sport

Croatians are a sporting nation; sport is part of the compulsory curriculum in schools at all levels of education. Many children and young people take part in extracurricular sporting activities, which are also seen as a way of life in recreational terms ...

Literature

Croatian medieval literature, unique in being produced in three languages (Latin, Old Slavonic and the vernacular) and three scripts (Roman, Glagolitic and Cyrillic) developed from the 8th to 16th century in the form of poetry, verse dialogue ...

Croatia in brief

Croatia has been present on the contemporary international political stage since its independence from the Yugoslav Federation, i.e. for a little over two decades, but in terms of history and culture, is one of the oldest European countries ...