Country name: Republic of Croatia
Geography: Southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia
Area: 56,542 sq km
Population: 4,494,749 (July 2006 est.)
Capital: Zagreb
Language: Croatian 96.1%, Serbian 1%, other and undesignated 2.9% (including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German) (2001 census)
Natural resources: oil, some coal, bauxite, low-grade iron ore, calcium, gypsum, natural asphalt, silica, mica, clays, salt, hydropower
Government type: presidential/parliamentary democracy
Legal system: based on civil law system
Currency: kuna (HRK)
Republic of Croatia is located in the Southeastern part of Europe with a territory comprising of around 56,500 square kilometers and a population of 4,500,000 people. The country is situated on the Adriatic Sea coast with beautiful beaches and a mixture of continental and Mediterranean climate which makes the country very alluring to tourists for their summer vacation. The country shares borders with 5 other countries: to the west with Slovenia, to the East with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and to the North with Hungary. The capital of the country is Zagreb. The time zone is GMT +1. Croatian is the official and most widely spread language around 95%, however Serbian is also used along with other not designated languages under the influence of other surrounding countries. The prevalent religion in the republic of Croatia is Roman Catholic (85%), also Orthodox and Muslim comprise a small part of the religious affections.
Croatia is a former Yugoslav country that declared independence on the 25 of June 1991. Despite that the Yugoslav army attacked Croatia and occupied a major part of the country. Subsequently, Croatia was internationally recognized in 1992; however the government did not have a complete control over its own territories until the end of the 20th century when Croatia became independent not only on paper but also physically.
The economy of republic of Croatia is still way behind those of Italy, France and other western countries but it has improved substantially since country’s reform from socialism to market-driven economy. The Independence day put a new beginning for the country, but the subsequent war and Serbian invasion did not allow the country to take advantage of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that took place in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall. However, Croatia managed to get out of the crisis by making substantial efforts to restructure its economy and make the shift from socialism to capitalism. It undertook major steps such as converting state-owned enterprises into private entities, decentralized-decision making, the formation and control of stable currency and interest rates that allowed the country to form a market-driven economy. Although not being a member of NATO and European Union, the country has showed a significant growth in GDP per capita with an annual increase of between 4 to 6 per cent for the last 7 years. The country’s GDP per capita is higher than some members of the EU such as Bulgaria where the GDP per capita is approximately $ 11,500, whereas Croatia has around $ 15,400.
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