Croatia, officially Republic of Croatia (in Croatian: Republika Hrvatska listen (? · I), Hrvatska AFI: [xř̩.ʋaː.ʦkaː]), is a democratic parliamentary republic, member of the European Union, located between Central Europe, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea; It borders the northeast with Hungary, the east with Serbia, the southeast with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro, the northwest with Slovenia and the south-west with the Adriatic Sea; where it shares a maritime border with Italy.

Its capital and most important city is Zagreb. It has a territorial extension of 56 594 km² - this figure includes the more than a thousand islands that are located off the coast of the Adriatic Sea - and has a varied climate, mostly continental and Mediterranean. As for the political administration, the country is divided into twenty counties and the city of Zagreb. Its population amounts to more than 4.29 million inhabitants, most of them are Croats of Catholic religion.

At the beginning of the 7th century the Croats arrived in the area and two centuries later they were organized into two duchies. In 925 Tomislav became the first king, elevating the status of the state to a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia maintained its sovereignty for almost two centuries, and reached its peak during the reign of Peter Krešimir IV and Demetrio Zvonimir. Croatia formed a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, threatened by Ottoman expansion, the Croatian parliament elected Ferdinand I of Habsburg as successor of the Croatian throne. In 1918, after the First World War, it was part of the ephemeral Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which had been separated from Austria-Hungary, and which later became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the Second World War a puppet state of Nazi Germany was founded. After the war, Croatia was a founding member and federal element of the Second Yugoslavia, a socialist state. In June 1991, Croatia declared its independence, which was recognized on October 8 of that year. The Croatian War of Independence took place in the four years following the declaration.