The origins
Scientists and historians are still searching for the exact origin of Croats. Theories on Slavic or Persian ancestry are the most commonly accepted. The origin of the word is safer. The Romans feared the native tribes who attacked them with frightening cries, Huraa! Huraaa! U rat! In war! which resulted in Hurati. The Latins, not using the h sound in their language, baptized them with the word Kroati, from which Croatia would come. There is also the more recent version dating from the 17th century, when the kings of France (Louis XIII and Louis XIV) had Slavic cavalry in their service, which wore a black cloth over their shirt collar. They were called Royal-Cravats, a proper name that came from "tie", a distortion of the Croatian word.
For a long time landlocked, the territory had three main population centres: shepherds in the Dinaric Alps, peasants in the countryside and fishermen on the banks of the Adriatic. This geographical distribution explains why some natural environments are still almost empty (mountains, forests, desert islands), while the fertile soils of mainland Croatia, the mild coastal climate and cities have the highest population rates. After the Second World War, the progress of industrialization and the development of tourism accelerated the desertification of the countryside. In the mountains, there are hardly more than 20 or 23 inhabitants per square kilometre for an overall density of 72.5 inhabitants per square kilometre, with about 60% of the population living in urban areas, while one in four inhabitants lives in one of the four main Croatian cities (Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Osijek).The last war in the former Yugoslavia (1991-1995) changes the spatial distribution of the population
More than 20,000 people have died in Croatia as a result of the conflicts. A large part of the population has been displaced or has taken refuge in safer areas, on the Adriatic coast or abroad. The Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who since the Middle Ages had been an integral part of the population, alongside Bosniacs and Serbs, fled to Croatia, which, at the height of the war, welcomed up to 800,000 people. In 2009, the vast majority of refugees returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The population of Serbian origin also suffered heavy losses. The number of Serbs living in Croatia is estimated at 3%, compared to 12% before the war began, or 135,000, mainly in the regions of Vukovar-Srijem, Sisak-Moslavina, Lika-Senj, Karlovac, Šibenik-Knin and Osijek-Baranja.
Today, the country is characterised by a high degree of homogeneity: 80.4% of its inhabitants are of Croatian origin. However, the question of diversity has been raised since the declaration of independence. The preamble to the Constitution (22 December 1990) immediately underlines its importance: "The Republic of Croatia is a national State of the Croatian people, which is also the State of those who, while belonging to other nations and minorities, are its citizens: serbs, Muslims, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews and others, to whom equality with citizens of Croatian nationality and respect for their national rights are guaranteed in accordance with the democratic rules of the United Nations and other countries of the free world. "These national minorities enjoy the freedom to teach in their own language, cultural autonomy, and are represented in Parliament and in local and regional authorities. Shadowed by this, 3,000 stateless or threatened people live in Croatia without documents, most of them Roma.Migration crisis in 2015, an unprecedented influx of refugees
Historically, mafia networks have always existed in Croatia. They brought in illegal immigration, which crossed the Balkans from Greece to Slovenia, Italy and northern European countries. But in the autumn-winter of 2015-2016, as a direct result of the wars in Syria, Iraq and tensions in the Middle East (Afghanistan, Pakistan), thousands of refugees and candidates for exile arrived at the Serbo-Croat border. Almost all of these people were in transit, seeking to cross into Northern Europe. As the border with Hungary became difficult or impossible to cross, the Balkan route passed through Croatia and displaced the humanitarian problem common to Europe. By September 2015, the number of migrants in the country had surpassed 35,000. Tensions have rekindled, involving neighbouring countries (Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Serbia). Camps have been opened to register them, to welcome them for a while, particularly in Slavonski Brod, and the rise of the far right has been witnessed, both in Croatia and in the EU.
At the end of 2015, this management of migration flows cooled relations between Zagreb and Ljubljana, which already had a territorial dispute, with each country claiming Piran Bay. According to the European Court of Justice, a Member State has the right to authorise the arrival of migrants on its territory for humanitarian reasons, without respecting the usual rules of entry. It can only do so for its own territory. Austria and Slovenia could therefore legitimately return asylum seekers who had arrived illegally on their territory to Croatia. In the end, EU members agreed to extend the agreement with Turkey, as well as to strengthen border protection. Then the Croatian government made amends by arguing that it had the necessary resources to receive migrants. He announced the implementation of a pilot project to better integrate them. But according to the Amnesty International report (2017-2018), Croatia accepted only 10% of the 1,600 asylum seekers it had committed to resettle under EU programmes. However, considering its demographics at half-mast, it could really use it.Youth emigration, brain drain
For three decades, the Croatian population has been slowly decreasing. It has grown from 4.773 million inhabitants (1990) to 4.178 million (first half of 2019). This demographic upheaval is linked to the rise in mortality during the last war and then to the recurring economic factor. The country's entry into the EU (2013) has not changed this. Many young people and graduates prefer to settle abroad. The realisation of the European dream has opened the doors of the single market to thousands of Croatians who have found better working conditions and higher wages. It is estimated that the Croatian diaspora includes more than two and a half million emigrants. Many nationals, both direct and descendants, live in the United States (1.3 million), Canada (150,000), South America (400,000), Australia (250,000), New Zealand (40,000), Germany (350,000), Austria (90,000), Switzerland (80,000), Italy (60,000), France (40,000) or Sweden (35,000). Controlling demographics therefore remains a priority for the country's future.
Sources in Croatian Bureau of Statistics: www.dzs.hr
