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Southeastern Europe, at the northeast of the Adriatic Sea, north of Bosnia-Herzegovina, south of Slovenia. Capital: Zagreb.
A presidential/parliamentary democracy.
The Factbook of 2004 writes: "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."
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Estimated per capita GDP:
2007 $15,500 (ranks 71st)
2006 $13,400
2005 $12,400
2004 $11,200
2003 $10,700
GDP annual growth rate estimated for 2007: 5.6 percent. (Ranks 89th)
Factbook of 2005: "Growth, while impressively about 4 percent for the last several years, has been achieved through high fiscal and current account deficits".
Unemployment for 2004 was almost 20 percent. For 2005 the estimate is 14 percent. In Croatia's Serb communities unemployment seldom falls below 50 percent.
Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP: 2.39 (estimated for 2005)
Deaths: 11.66, up from 11.38 in 2005. Births: 9.68, up from 9.57 in 2005
Estimated for 2008: 4.491 million, roughly the same as 2005. Growth rate estimated for 2008: minus 0.043 percent per year.
Estimated from 2008: 1.58 more people arriving per 1,000 persons than leaving, than same as in 2007 and 2005.
Infant mortality estimated for 2008 - deaths before the age of one per 1,000 live births: 6.49, down from 6.84 in 2005.
Average life expectancy estimated for 2008: 75.13 years, up from 74.90 in 2007.
Living with HIV/AIDS, ages 15 to 49: less than 0.1 percent (2001).
Croats: 89.6 percent. Serbs: 4.5 percent. Croats are Roman Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox. Many Croats remain hostile to Serbs.
President Stipe Mesic, supported by a center-left coalition, has won a second five-year term., with 66 percent of the vote. He spoke of his pride in the maturity of Croatia's democracy.
Croatia is looking forward to entering the European Union before the end of the decade and has been moving to secure the minority (mainly Serb) rights that the European Union has as a condition for membership.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
Copyright © 2008 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.