Croatia

Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in central and southeastern Europe, at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital (and largest city) is Zagreb. Croatia borders Slovenia and Hungary to the north, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the southeast, and Serbia and Montenegro to the east.

The Croats arrived in the early seventh century in what is Croatia today. They organized the state into two dukedoms. The first king, King Tomislav was crowned in AD 925 and Croatia was elevated into the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for almost two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Peter Krešimir IV and Demetrius Zvonimir. Croatia entered a union with Hungary in 1102. In 1526, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand from the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, Croatia declared independence from Austria–Hungary and co-founded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. An independent Croatian state briefly existed during World War II, during which Croatia was a dependency of the Nazi Germany 1939–1944. After World War II, Croatia became a founding member of the Second Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991, Croatia declared independence and became a sovereign state.

Croatia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization and CEFTA. The country is a candidate for European Union membership and is a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean. Croatia is classified as an emerging and developing economy by the International Monetary Fund and a high income economy by the World Bank.