About Croatia

Location

Located directly east of Italy across the Adriatic sea, Croatia borders with Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. At the nearest points Croatia is less than 20 miles from both Italy and Austria.

Croatia's stunning coast with over 1,100 miles( about 1600 km) of shoreline, lies on the Adriatic Sea, one of the cleanest areas of the Mediterranean. This is an region of outstanding natural beauty, history and culture with exceptionally well preserved medieval towns, Roman antiquities, aromatic pine woods and the sapphire blue sea.

Croatia has 1,185 islands, rocks and reefs which together present another 2,500 miles of shoreline. Only sixty six of the islands are inhabited. The largest islands are Krk and Cres.

Croatia's Adriatic coast and islands undoubtedly deserve its reputation as a first class holiday destination. Inland Continental Croatia, however, also abounds in beauty: it is a land of forests (indeed 38% of the country is forested), rivers rich in fish, swift mountain streams and to the east wide fertile plains.

In Croatia there are seven National parks. The mountain of Risnjak is a national park, situated relatively close to the coast, in the region of Gorski Kotar. The Plitvice Lakes are situated in the continental region of Lika, half way between Zagreb and Šibenik. The beauty of the virgin nature and the abundance of animal and plant life, were the reasons why the area was designated a national park in 1949 and why UNESCO put Plitvice Lakes on its list of world natural heritage in 1979. The Paklenica Canyon, located in the vicinity of Zadar, is also protected as a national park. Its two 400 m deep gorges rank among the most impressive erosion formations in Europe. Paklenica is also noted for its flora and fauna. The Krka River, probably the most wonderful of all the rivers in the Croatian karst, is also a national park. The river runs through a canyon, and then as it cuts its way to the sea, it forms lakes, waterfalls and rapids.