Croatia is located in Southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia.
Croatia has borders with Bosnia and Herzegovina for 932km, Hungary for 329km, Montenegro for 25km and Slovenia for 670km.
Land in Croatia is geographically diverse; flat plains along Hungarian border, low mountains and highlands near Adriatic coastline and islands.
Croatian land covers an area of 56542 square kilometers which is slightly smaller than West Virginia
As for the Croatian climate; Mediterranean and continental; continental climate predominant with hot summers and cold winters; mild winters, dry summers along coast.
Croat(s), Croatian(s) speak Croatian 96.1%, Serbian 1%, other and undesignated 2.9% (including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German) (2001 census).
The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998.
Before the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the Republic of Croatia, after Slovenia, was the most prosperous and industrialized area with a per capita output perhaps one-third above the Yugoslav average. The economy emerged from a mild recession in 2000 with tourism, banking, and public investments leading the way. Unemployment remains high, at about 18%, with structural factors slowing its decline. While macroeconomic stabilization has largely been achieved, structural reforms lag because of deep resistance on the part of the public and lack of strong support from politicians. Growth, while impressive at about 3% to 4% for the last several years, has been stimulated, in part, through high fiscal deficits and rapid credit growth. The EU accession process should accelerate fiscal and structural reform.
Croatian natural resources include oil, some coal, bauxite, low-grade iron ore, calcium, gypsum, natural asphalt, silica, mica, clays, salt, hydropower
controls most land routes from Western Europe to Aegean Sea and Turkish Straits
Croatian religion is Roman Catholic 87.8%, Orthodox 4.4%, other Christian 0.4%, Muslim 1.3%, other and unspecified 0.9%, none 5.2% (2001 census).
Natural hazards in Croatia include destructive earthquakes.