The Croats put the Glagolitic script into print in the very earliest period of European printing, in the 15th century, and five incunabula were printed in Glagolitic. The incunabulum, Glagolitic Missal, was published on 22 February 1483, in Croatian Church Slavonic, only 28 years after Gutenberg’s Bible. It is the first ever missal in Europe to have been printed in a non-Latin script, and the perfection of the letters and the beauty of the typesetting and printing make it an absolute masterpiece of the printer’s art.

Croatia is administratively divided into 20 counties and the City of Zagreb, which has the status of a county. Each county has particular competence for general education, health, land use, economic development, transport and its infrastructure, and the development of educational and cultural institutions.

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

Detail in Croatian Glagolitic of the Reims Gospel (1395), also known as “Texte du Sacre”, upon which the kings of France were wont to swear their coronation oath. It is kept in the Carnegie Library in Reims (France).

The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the oldest in Southeast Europe (1866) and has up to 160 full members (academicians) in its 9 departments. It also encompasses several scientific-research and art institutes, as well as numerous scientific boards and councils.

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 ...

Nature protection

A large number of protected natural areas and features show that Croatia is a country of exceptional, diverse, and comparatively well-preserved natural beauty, of which some examples, such as the Plitvice Lakes, are famous ...

Executive power

The President of the Republic represents and acts for the Republic of Croatia at home and abroad. The President is elected pursuant to universal and equal suffrage by direct election for a period of five years. The President of the Republic provides ...

Did you know?

The tie (cravat), today an essential fashion accessory for men and women, was named after an item in the uniform of Croatian soldiers during the Thirty Years War? As part of their uniform, they tied an eye-catching length of fabric around their necks ...

Literature

Croatian medieval literature, unique in being produced in three languages (Latin, Old Slavonic and the vernacular) and three scripts (Roman, Glagolitic and Cyrillic) developed from the 8th to 16th century in the form of poetry, verse dialogue ...

Demographic picture

With a population density of 76 per km², Croatia is one of the more sparsely populated European countries, along with Norway, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ireland and Bulgaria. In the last 150 years, several factors have influenced population ...

The Prehistoric period

The earliest traces of human presence on Croatian soil date back to the Palaeolithic Age. In Šandalja Cave near Pula, and in Punikve near Ivanec, flints made by pre-Neanderthal people have been found, while the remains of Neanderthal prehistoric ...

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 ...