{ "Introduction": { "Background": { "text": "
The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end 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 consisting of six socialist republics, including Croatia, under the strong hand of Josip Broz, aka TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before Yugoslav forces were cleared from Croatian lands, along with a majority of Croatia's ethnic Serb population. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. The country joined NATO in 2009 and the EU in 2013. In January 2023, Croatia further integrated into the EU by joining the Eurozone and the Schengen Area.
" } }, "Geography": { "Location": { "text": "Southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia" }, "Geographic coordinates": { "text": "45 10 N, 15 30 E" }, "Map references": { "text": "Europe" }, "Area": { "total ": { "text": "56,594 sq km" }, "land": { "text": "55,974 sq km" }, "water": { "text": "620 sq km" } }, "Area - comparative": { "text": "slightly smaller than West Virginia" }, "Land boundaries": { "total": { "text": "2,237 km" }, "border countries": { "text": "Bosnia and Herzegovina 956 km; Hungary 348 km; Montenegro 19 km; Serbia 314 km; Slovenia 600 km" } }, "Coastline": { "text": "5,835 km (mainland 1,777 km, islands 4,058 km)" }, "Maritime claims": { "territorial sea": { "text": "12 nm" }, "continental shelf": { "text": "200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation" } }, "Climate": { "text": "Mediterranean and continental; continental climate predominant with hot summers and cold winters; mild winters, dry summers along coast" }, "Terrain": { "text": "geographically diverse; flat plains along Hungarian border, low mountains and highlands near Adriatic coastline and islands" }, "Elevation": { "highest point": { "text": "Dinara 1,831 m" }, "lowest point": { "text": "Adriatic Sea 0 m" }, "mean elevation": { "text": "331 m" } }, "Natural resources": { "text": "oil, some coal, bauxite, low-grade iron ore, calcium, gypsum, natural asphalt, silica, mica, clays, salt, hydropower" }, "Land use": { "agricultural land": { "text": "23.7% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: arable land": { "text": "arable land: 16% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent crops": { "text": "permanent crops: 1.5% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent pasture": { "text": "permanent pasture: 6.2% (2018 est.)" }, "forest": { "text": "34.4% (2018 est.)" }, "other": { "text": "41.9% (2018 est.)" } }, "Irrigated land": { "text": "171 sq km (2020)" }, "Major rivers (by length in km)": { "text": "Dunav (Danube) (shared with Germany [s], Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania [m]) - 2,888 kmdrug trafficking groups are major players in the procurement and transportation of large quantities of cocaine destined for European markets
" } } }