Background: In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became an 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.
Geography Croatia
Location: Southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea, between
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia
Geographic coordinates: 45 10 N, 15 30 E
Map references: Europe
Area: total: 56,542 sq km water: 128 sq km land: 56,414 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than West Virginia
Land boundaries: total: 2,185 km border countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina 932 km, Hungary 329 km, Yugoslavia 254 km, Slovenia 670 km
Coastline: 5,835 km (mainland 1,777 km, islands 4,058 km)
Maritime claims: continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation territorial sea: 12 NM