Country Name
Croatia, or officially the Republic of Croatia.
Location
Croatia is a Central European and Mediterranean country, is country at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe. It shares a coastline along the Adriatic Sea.
It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the southeast, the country also is sharing a maritime border with Italy in the Adriatic Sea to the west and southwest.
Capital
Zagreb.
Reason for Naming
The name of Croatia derives from Medieval Latin Croātia, itself a derivation of the native ethnonym of Croats, earlier *Xъrvate and modern-day Croatian: Hrvati.
The origin of the name is uncertain but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of the variable stem, attested in the Baška tablet in style zvъnъmirъ kralъ xrъvatъskъ ("Zvonimir, Croatian king").
Croatia is often called “the land of a thousand islands” A more accurate nickname might be “the land of 1,246 islands, islets, and reefs” but that's just not quite as catchy.
Flag
The flag of Croatia was adopted on 21 December 1990.
The national flag of Croatia is known as the Trobojnica, which translates to English to mean The Tricolour. The flag consists of three horizontal stripes Red, White, and Blue, with the Croatian coat of arms in the center of the flag, the flag colors are used to represent the historic constituent states of the Croatian Kingdom.
Red and white are a representation of the Kingdom of Croatia, blue and white are representative of the Kingdom of Slavonia, and blue color and Yellow are used to symbolize The Kingdom of Dalmatia, The coat of arms that is centered on the flag features multiple colors, including cyan, yellow, and black.
The checkered shield of the coat of arms represents the Croatian nation and five small crests represent Croatian provinces Old Croatia from the left, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Istria, and Slavonia.
The Croatian flag was adopted ten months before the nation declared its independence from Yugoslavia and the day before the adoption of the nation’s constitution.
*Flag Facts
- The flag of Croatia is similar to the flag of Paraguay, the flag of the Netherlands, and the flag of Luxembourg the only distinguishable bit between the flags is that the flag of Croatia has a coat of arms on the flag.
-Although the four flags use similar colors, the flag of Luxembourg has lighter shades of red and blue.
Language
Croatian is the official language of Croatia and became the 24th official language of the European Union upon its accession in 2013. Minority languages are in official use in local government units where more than a third of the population consists of national minorities or where local legislation defines so. Those languages are Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Ruthenian, Serbian, and Slovak. Besides these, the following languages are also recognized: Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, German, Hebrew, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Polish, Romanian, Romany, Russian, Rusyn, Slovene, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
Religion
The constitution of Croatia defines all religious communities as equal by law and separate from the state, and the country has no official religion.
Christianity is the dominant religion in Croatia, with 91% of citizens identifying as Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant Christians. Only a small percentage of Croatians have other beliefs, the most prominent being Islam, and the rest identify as Atheists, Agnostic, or non-religious.
Currency
Kuna (HRK).
Time Zone
+02:00 GMT. (Summer Time),
+01:00 GMT.
Government Regime
Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic.
Climate
In Croatia, there are three types of climate: - the climate of Istria, the Adriatic coast, and the islands, is mild (especially in the southern part) and rainy; - the climate of the Dinaric Alps, cold and snowy in winter and cool in summer, with thunderstorms in the afternoon; - the continental climate of the interior plains with hot summers and cold, snowy winters. Croatia is moderately rainy in the plains and inland valleys, and definitely rainy along the coast and the western slopes of the mountain ranges. The rainfall pattern is the Mediterranean along the coast, with a minimum in summer and a maximum in autumn and winter, while in the interior plains, precipitation is frequent throughout the year, and in winter, it often occurs in the form of snow, but it's more abundant in summer when it often occurs in the form of thunderstorms.
The best time to visit Croatia, for a beach holiday, the best months are July and August.
You can visit the rest of Croatia (inland regions, including the capital) from May to September. The sun often shines, but during the afternoon, thunderstorms are possible-on average, one day every 3 or 4.
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