POPULATION 4,390,751
ROMAN CATHOLIC 87.83 percent
EASTERN ORTHODOX 4.42 percent
OTHER CHRISTIAN 0.58 percent
OTHER 1.4 percent
AGNOSTIC, UNDECLARED, NOT RELIGIOUS, OR UNKNOWN 5.77 percent

Country Overview

Introduction

The Republic of Croatia is a small country located on the Adriatic Sea in the southeast of Europe. It lost its independence as early as the twelfth century and at times has been a part of Hungary, Austria, and Yugoslavia. In addition, parts of contemporary Croatian territory were once under the control of the Republic of Venice, the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon's France, and Italy. In 1991 Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia to become an independent country.

Along with language, religion has played a large part in the preservation of the national identity of Croatians. Roman Catholicism served to identify Croatians in the multinational Yugoslavia, in which Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam were also dominant religions. The fall of communism, the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the independence of Croatia in...