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People
Demography
With an estimated 4.4 million inhabitants, Croatia is the 25th most populous nation in Europe. The urban population has grown now represents over 55 percent of the total population.
The population of Croatia is fundamentally divided into two major ethnic groups: ethnic Croats and Serbs. The Croatian majority controls the Croatian government and military.
In general, religious affiliation can be broken down in the following way: 76 percent of Croatia's inhabitants are Roman Catholic, approximately 11 percent are Eastern Orthodox, 1 percent are Muslims, and the remainder adhere to other beliefs, of which Protestantism represents about .4 percent.
This religious diversity coincides with the ethnic diversity. The Croats, comprising around 78 percent of the total population, tend to fall into the Roman Catholic category, although some may be Muslim as well. The Serbs, who make up about 12 percent of the population, almost universally belong to the Eastern Orthodox church.
Other ethnic groups include Bosniaks, as well as small minorities of Hungarians, Slovenians, Czechs, Albanians and Roma.
Croatian, Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian and German are spoken in Croatia. Istriot, Istro-Romanian, and Serbo-Croatian also have been spoken in specific regions or at specific points in recent history. Human Development
An estimated 97 percent of the population, aged 15 and older, are literate. Croatians, according to recent estimates, are expected to have a life expectancy of 70 years for males and 78 years for females. The infant mortality rate is 7.06 deaths for every 1000 live births. About 4.6 percent of GDP is spent in the country on educational expenditures. About 7.8 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally very good.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI places Croatia in the high human development category, at 51st place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.
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