The counties are primary territorial subdivisions of the Republic of Croatia. In Croatian they are called županije in plural and županija in singular form.

There is a total of 20 counties and 1 city in the country.

History

Croatia has had counties since the Middle Ages. However, their sizes, names and positions changed with time.

The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia was divided in 1867 into eight counties or comitatus.

The Serb-Croat-Slovene Kingdom was divided into counties between 1918 and 1922 and into oblasts between 1922 and 1929. With the formation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, most of the territory of the former Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia became a part of the Sava Banate.

In socialist Yugoslavia, Socialist Republic of Croatia was divided into općine (sing. općina) which were smaller than the present counties. The designation općina has been retained for municipalities which are one level smaller than the županije and also smaller than the old općine.

The political representatives elected for county government used to form a Chamber of Counties (Županijski dom) in the Croatian Parliament, between 1993 and 2001.

Present-day counties were introduced in the 1990 Constitution of Croatia, and have only slightly changed since.

Organization

Each county has an assembly (županijska skupština) which is composed of representatives elected by popular vote, using party-list proportional representation, for four-year terms. The county assembly elects the executive county leadership, decides on the yearly budget, the county properties etc.

The leader of a county is a župan (sometimes translated as "prefect"), who has one or two deputies each called a dožupan. The župan presides over the county's executive government (županijsko poglavarstvo), and represents the county in external affairs.

List of counties

The list of counties, grouped into historic and geographic larger regions:

County	Official name
Istria
Istria County	Istarska županija
Central Croatia
Bjelovar-Bilogora	Bjelovarsko-bilogorska županija
Karlovac	Karlovačka županija
Koprivnica-Križevci	Koprivničko-križevačka županija
Krapina-Zagorje	Krapinsko-zagorska županija
Lika-Senj	Ličko-senjska županija
Međimurje	Međimurska županija
Primorje-Gorski Kotar	Primorsko-goranska županija
Sisak-Moslavina	Sisačko-moslavačka županija
Varaždin	Varaždinska županija
Zagreb County	Zagrebačka županija
Zagreb town	Grad Zagreb
Dalmatia
Dubrovnik-Neretva	Dubrovačko-neretvanska županija
Split-Dalmatia	Splitsko-dalmatinska županija
Šibenik-Knin	Šibensko-kninska županija
Zadar	Zadarska županija
Slavonia
Brod-Posavina	Brodsko-posavska županija
Osijek-Baranja	Osječko-baranjska županija
Požega-Slavonia	Požeško-slavonska županija
Virovitica-Podravina	Virovitičko-podravska županija
Vukovar-Syrmia	Vukovarsko-srijemska županija

Naming

The county names ending in the suffixes -čka and -ska are adjectives, with the noun županija implied, so e.g. Karlovačka's full name is Karlovačka županija. Some counties prefer to swap the order of those two words but they are in the minority (since February 7, 1997 when the order was officially changed).

Cities

Zagreb itself is grad, a city, due to its importance it has a county status and jurisdiction. Any town with population over 35,000 can take over a part of jurisdiction of its county.

References

• Hrvatske županije kroz stoljeća (Croatian Counties Across Centuries), ed. Ivo Goldstein, Zagreb, 1996

See also

• Etymology of županija