User:Allens/sandbox/List of Counties of Croatia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The counties of Croatia (Croatian: županije) are the primary administrative subdivisions of the Republic of Croatia.[1] Since they were re-established in 1992, Croatia has been divided into 20 counties and the capital city of Zagreb; the last has the authority and legal status of both a county and a city, separately from the surrounding Zagreb County.[2][3] The counties are subdivided into 127 cities and 429 (mostly rural) municipalities.[4] The counties correspond to tier three of the EU's Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) division of Croatia. The NUTS Local Administrative Unit (LAU) divisions are two-tiered; the LAU 1 divisions for Croatia also match the counties (in effect making these the same as the NUTS 3 units).[5]
Croatia was first subdivided into counties in the Middle Ages.[6] The divisions have changed over time, reflecting: territorial losses to Ottoman conquest and subsequent Croatian recapture of some territory; changes in the political status of Dalmatia, Dubrovnik and Istria; and political circumstances, including the personal union and settlement between Croatia and Hungary.[7][8] The traditional division of Croatia into counties was abolished in 1922, when the oblasts of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were introduced; these were later replaced by the banovinas of Yugoslavia.[9] Communist-ruled Croatia, as a constituent part of post-WWII Yugoslavia, organised Croatia into approximately one hundred municipalities. The counties were reintroduced in 1992, but with significant territorial alterations from the pre-1922 subdivisions; for instance, before 1922 Transleithanian Croatia was divided into eight counties, but the new legislation established fourteen counties in the same territory. Međimurje County was established in the eponymous region acquired through the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.[10][11] The county borders have sometimes changed since their 1992 restoration (for reasons such as historical ties and requests by cities); the latest revision took place in 2006.[4]