The Population Of Croatia. Religion, language, a short description of the country

Croatia is a tourist country on the Adriatic sea. In this article we'll talk about the population of Croatia, its language and features.

What is this country?

Croatia is situated in the southern part of Central Europe. It is surrounded by Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro. The Western side is washed by the Adriatic sea. The area of Croatia is 56 542 square kilometers. In addition to the mainland, the country belongs to more than a thousand Islands. Krk, Cres, brač, Hvar, Pag are the largest.

Before independence in 1991, Croatia was part of Yugoslavia. Now it is an independent Republic with a parliamentary form of government. Croatia is a member of several organizations, including the UN, European Union, NATO, OSCE. Paper money in Croatia called coons, coins – the Linden trees.

The Main and largest city is Zagreb. The number of large cities is also Osijek, Rijeka, Split. In recent years the government has been successfully developing its tourist potential, representing the travelers both architectural and natural attractions. The country has about 20 national and nature parks, as well as many towns with medieval streets and buildings.

Population

The Number of inhabitants in the country is about 4.3 million. In terms of population, the country occupies the 120th place in the world. 51% population are women. In terms of the density, the country is at 94 place, one square kilometer is home to 79 people.

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The Overall life expectancy averages 75 years. Croatia is the most developed among the countries formerly part of Yugoslavia. However, the state's economy is still recovering after the war in 1991. Therefore, the country has fairly high unemployment rate, it is equal to 17 %. The urban population amounts to almost 60 %.

Croatia is an industrial-agrarian country. But due to rapidly developing tourism most of the population (53 %) work in the service sector. About 30 % of the population works in the industrial sector, and is engaged in agriculture only 17 % of the population.

Ethnic composition, religion, language

The Population of Croatia is homogeneous ethnic composition, 90 % of inhabitants are Croats. They represent the indigenous population, one of the branches of the southern Slavs, who inhabited the present territory of the country in the seventh century. The appearance of this people characterized by high growth and black hair color. Red and white Croats are extremely rare.

The Serbs represent the largest minority. Their number is about 190 thousand. They mainly live in Lika, Gorski Kotar and the Slavonia. The Czechs concentrated mostly in Daruvar, Italians – in Istria. Other national minorities are settled throughout the country. These include Bosniaks, Hungarians, Roma, Germans, Slovenes, Albanians.

The Croatian language with Latin alphabet, is the official. Besides Croatian, many residents also speak English, German, Italian. The majority of the population professes Catholicism. Approximately 5% of the population are Orthodox, as many people-atheists. About 2 % are Protestants and Muslims.

Serbian or Croatian?

Croatian is the official language not only for Croatia. At the state level it adopted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian Vojvodina and the Austrian Federal state of Burgenland. This is one of the official languages in the European Union. The number of speakers is more than 6 million people.

Croatian belongs to the Slavic group of languages. Those closest to him are the Serbian, Montenegrin and Bosnian. There are three major dialects of the Croatian language, which are common in certain areas of the country. Many people do not see the difference between them. They really are very similar, and the inhabitants of the two Balkan countries in 90% of cases without difficulty understand each other. The literary version is based, like Serbian, shtokavski dialect. However, the Serbian language has some grammatical and lexical differences.

For a Long time on the territory of the state there was not a single language, while there were three of the literary language, which was based on Church Slavonic or on some dialects of Croatian. In the nineteenth century, the decision to combine language along with Serbian. In this case, instead of the Cyrillic alphabet, the Croats accepted the Latin alphabet. In the XX century conducted active actions in order to distinguish the Croatian language. Introduces many neologisms.

The Delimitation contributed significantly to landing at the city of the rural population. So, in the accepted literary variant implemented the living language of the local population. For many years, the government headed by Josip Broz Tito is trying to artificially merge the two languages, describing the General Serbo-Croatian. He didn't last long, and in the end, Croatia has again embarked on the independent development of language and culture.

Conclusion

The Republic of Croatia is one of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Until 1991 it was part of Yugoslavia together withSerbia, Montenegro and other Balkan countries. Most of the population are indigenous Croatians. Only 10 % of all residents belong to national minorities, mostly immigrants from neighboring countries. Despite the similarities with the neighbouring countries, Croatia confidently maintain their independence, national, linguistic and religious identity.