The amphitheatre in Pula, known as the Arena, built in the first century, the sixth largest in the Roman Empire, could host 25,000 spectators. Today, it is used for large cultural and sporting events.

The Pula Film Festival, held every summer in the Pula Arena, was launched in 1954 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world. Croatian cinemas hosted more than 4 million viewers in 2012.

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'.

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

About 60% of the population live in urban centres, and one in four live in one of the four largest cities (Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek).

Between Venice, Vienna and Pest

In the Great (Viennese) War (1683–99), large parts of Croatia and Slavonia were liberated from Ottoman rule and the border of the Dubrovnik Republic was finally determined. The Venetian Republic, which had established ...

Legislative power

In accordance with legal tradition, the Croatian Parliament is traditionally titled the Sabor. The oldest preserved records of sessions of the Sabor date back to 1273. Until the 16th century, the Slavonian and Croatian Sabors sat separately, but from 1681 ...

Fine arts

Works preserved from the oldest stylistic periods bear witness to the continuity of creativity and to the talents of local people, and place the Croatian art and architecture heritage on an equal footing with the main components of world creative output ...

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...

Geo-Communication position

As an Adriatic, Central European country, and part of the Danube valley, Croatia enjoys a favourable geo-communication position. Thus several pan-European transport corridors and their branches pass through Croatia ...

Branches of the economy

Croatia does not have large quantities of mineral resources. Coal and other mines (bauxite) were closed in the 1970s and 1980s. There are significant sources of non-metal minerals, which are used as raw materials ...

Economic transition

The Croatian economy is one of the strongest in Southeast Europe, and in terms of its GDP is even stronger that the economies of some members of the European Union. After the collapse of the socialist system, it underwent transition to an open market ...

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 ...