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Croatia

Europe

To which language should you translate to localize in Croatia?

What we know from our community

Croatia is a small but geographically and climatically diverse country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe. Its coast lies on the Adriatic Sea, which historically had a great influence on Croatian language and culture. 

The country’s capital and largest city, Zagreb, forms the country’s primary subdivision, while other major urban centers include Split, Rijeka and Osijek. These cities are centers of Croatian dialects, each of them very similar to the other, but with clear-cut differences that spice up the richness of Croatian language and its variations. 

While the eastern part of Croatia, Slavonija, is dominated by a dialect most similar to standard Croatian or Shtokavian, people in the western part of the country on the border with Slovenia speak in the Kajkavian dialect, most notably known for having a lot of Germanisms because Croatia was once ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The southern part of Croatia, also known as Dalmatia, speaks in Ikavian dialect, filled with words borrowed from Italian, the region’s former ruler and trading partner. 

Croatian culture is known for being hospitable and having an easy-going attitude towards social interactions, so carefully groomed for generations with the help of the famous Croatian coffee culture, when friends and family meet in coffee shops to talk for hours.

Croatian

Hrvatska je mala, ali geografski i klimatski raznolika zemlja smještena na raskrižju Srednje i Jugoistočne Europe. Njena obala leži na Jadranskom moru koje je oduvijek imalo velik utjecaj na hrvatski jezik i kulturu.

Glavni grad i najveći grad zemlje, Zagreb, poslovno je i demografsko središte, dok su drugi važni urbani centri Split, Rijeka i Osijek. Ovi gradovi čine središta hrvatskih narječja koja, iako slična jedno drugome, posjeduju jasne razlike koje obogaćuju hrvatski jezik i njegove varijacije.

Dok istočnim dijelom Hrvatske, Slavonijom, dominira narječje najbliže standardnom hrvatskom jeziku, odnosno štokavskom narječju, stanovništvo u zapadnom dijelu, uz granicu sa Slovenijom, govori kajkavskim narječjem punim germanizama jer je Hrvatska nekoć bila pod vlašću Austro-Ugarske monarhije. Južni dio Hrvatske, Dalmacija, govori čakavskim narječjem, ispunjenim riječima posuđenim iz talijanskog jezika, budući da je Italija bila bivši vladar i važan trgovački partner te regije.

Hrvatska kultura poznata je po gostoljubivosti i opuštenom odnosu kada je riječ o obiteljskim i prijateljskim dinamikama, pažljivo njegovanim kroz generacije uz pomoć poznate hrvatske kulture ispijanja kave, kada se prijatelji i obitelj sastaju u kafićima te razgovaraju satima.

Iva Trcic, translator, writer and communication specialist

Introduction


Language

Official language
Croatian 96.1%

T-index
0.07%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Serbian 1%, other 2.9%(including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German)

English
High proficiency (EF) – 11 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 10/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Zagreb
Currency: Croatian kuna
Population: 3,89 m
Population density: 72/km2

Economy

GDP: 68.96 USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 17,685.3 USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $17.7 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 82% penetration, 3.34 million
Unemployment rate: 7.6% (2021)
Urbanisation: 57.88% (2020)
Literacy: 99% (2021)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator, space as thousands separator

Date format: dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00385


Language data sources: Worldatlas/Britannica//EF/Wikipedia; Demography data sources: IMF/Worldometers; Conventions data source: Wikipedia; Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal; Statistics data sources: Datareportal/WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF/Culturalatlas/Commisceoglobal

Facts and data


Economy

Imports
$27.2 billion (2020).   Crude Petroleum ($1.22B), Packaged Medicaments ($943M), Cars ($919M), Vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($835M), and Refined Petroleum ($805M), importing mostly from Germany ($3.82B), Italy ($3.19B), Slovenia ($2.98B), Hungary ($1.99B), and Austria ($1.58B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 86% have an account with a financial institution
• 35% have a credit card
• 54% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is moderately easy to conduct business (rated 73.6 out of 100) ranked 16th out of 24 European and central Asian countries, and ranked 51st out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 27th out of 39 European countries, and 42nd out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Exports
$17.7 billion (2020).  Crude Petroleum ($754M), Packaged Medicaments ($719M), Refined Petroleum ($610M), Vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($502M), and Electrical Transformers ($402M), exporting mostly to Germany ($2.16B), Italy ($2.11B), Slovenia ($1.73B), Bosnia and Herzegovina ($1.34B), and Hungary ($1.26B).

Main local online stores
 njuskalo.hr, ebay.com and aliexpress.com, amazon.com and ikea.com

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (rated 66.4 out of 100) ranked 26th out of 44 European countries and ranked 46th out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).


Service Imports (2017)

Source: OEC


Service Exports (2017)

Source: OEC


Most Complex Products by PCI

Product Complexity Index measures the knowledge intensity of a product by considering the knowledge intensity of its exporters

Source: OEC


Most Specialized Products by RCA Index

Specialisation is measured using Revealed Comparative Advantage, an index that takes the ratio between Croatia observed and expected exports in each product

Source: OEC


Export Opportunities by Relatedness

Relatedness measures the distance between a country's current exports and each product, the barchart show only products that Croatia is not specialized in

Source: OEC


T-index

T-index

Reach most of the online purchasing power

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales. It estimates the market share of each country in relation to global e-commerce.

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Media

Media language
Croatian

Information channels:
Public broadcaster HRT is funded by advertising and a license fee. It faces stiff competition from private networks, including leading national station Nova TV, which is owned by a US investment company. TV is the main source of news, followed by the internet. As well as a digital terrestrial TV (DTT) service, there are established cable, satellite and internet protocol TV (IPTV) operators. Radio is a popular medium, with national and local commercial networks operating alongside public HRT. Austrian and German media companies have stakes in print media. A tabloid, 24 Sata, is the best-selling newspaper. In line with worldwide trends, circulation figures for the printed press are falling. Reporters face harassment and occasional attacks, says US-based Freedom House. Reporters Without Borders says the government “meddling” at HRT is a problem

The press

Vecernji list – daily
Jutarnji list – daily
24 Sata – tabloid daily
Slobodna Dalmacija – Split-based daily
Novi list – Rijeka-based daily
Glas Istre – Pula-based daily
Poslovni dnevnik – business daily
Globus – Zagreb-based political weekly
Nacional – Zagreb-based political, cultural weekly

Television

Croatian TV – public, operates national networks
RTL Televizija – national, private
Nova TV – national, private

Radio

Croatian Radio – public, operates three national networks
Radio 101 – private, Zagreb area
Otvoreni Radio – private, national
Narodni Radio – private, national

News agency

Hina – government-owned, English-language pages
Croatian Information Centre
Index.hr – news portal
Net.hr – news portal


Media

Media language
Predominantly French, English, Arabic

Information channels:
Television is France’s most popular medium. The flagship network, TF1, is privately-owned and public broadcaster France Televisions is funded from the TV licence fee and advertising revenue. Satellite and cable offer a proliferation of channels. Major pay-TV operator Canal+ is owned by media giant Vivendi. Digital terrestrial TV carries dozens of channels. France has a free press and more than 100 daily newspapers. Most of them are in private hands and are not linked to political parties. Public Radio France serves a domestic audience and French overseas territories. Commercial radios, particularly RTL and Europe 1, command large audiences. France is a force in international broadcasting. Radio France Internationale is a leading outlet and its Arabic-language Monte Carlo Doualiya service broadcasts across the Middle East. Global news channel France 24 TV broadcasts in French, English and Arabic. It has said it aims to present “a different point of view from the Anglo-Saxon world”.

The press

Le Monde – respected national daily, considered to be France’s newspaper of record
Liberation – national daily, founded in 1973 by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, centre-left leaning
Le Figaro – national daily, centre-right leaning
Ouest France – Rennes-based; France’s best-selling daily
L’Express – news weekly
Le Point – news weekly

Television

France 2 – national, main public TV network
France 3 – national, public
France 5 – national, public, educational
BFM TV – national, commercial news channel
TF1 – national, commercial
M6 – national, commercial
La Chaine Info – rolling news channel owned by TF1
France 24 – publicly-owned global news channel; services in French, English, Arabic
TV5 Monde – international French-language TV, with programs from French, Belgian, Swiss and Canadian public broadcasters
Canal Plus – national, subscription channel

Radio

Radio France – operates national and regional outlets, including speech-based France Inter and all-news France Info
Radio France Internationale (RFI) – international broadcaster, via shortwave and FM relays worldwide
Europe 1 – major commercial station, news and entertainment
RTL – major commercial station, speech and music
NRJ – commercial, leading hit music network

News agency

Agence France Presse (AFP) – Paris-based, founded in 1835


Media data source: BBC


Internet Data

Internet users
82% penetration, 3.34 million

Share of web traffic by device
49.37% mobile phones, 49.03% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.55% tablet devices, others 0.05%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
76.64 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
38.87 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 129%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 86.1%

Most popular web search engines
Google (97.43%), Bing (1.94%), Duckduckgo (0.22%), Yahoo (0.18%), Najdi.si (0.08%), Yandex (0.05%)

Most used social media
Facebook (65.09%), Instagram (11.44%), Twitter (10.42%), Pinterest (7.87%), YouTube (3.11%), Reddit (1.18%)


Internet data sources: Datareportal/Statcounter


Social statistics

Life expectancy
78 yrs (2021)

Average age of the population
44.3 yrs (2020)

Healthcare expenditure
6.98% of GDP

Ethnicities
This varies according to ethnic background and workplace. Generally, being Serbian or Roma, to a lesser extent, will have little impact in the workplace. At work, Croatians tend to keep their thoughts and feelings private. Occasionally, Croatians may make derogatory ethnic comments to Serbians –and other ethnicities – when irritated or in disagreement with them. Otherwise, attitudes regarding ethnicity are not expressed in the presence of the person and will not affect work. Stereotypes of certain ethnic groups exist but will not affect work. Ethnicity plays a minor role in the workplace, except during the hiring phase. Ethnicity plays a role when applying for a job.

Religion
Religion and nationality have no impact in the workplace. Croatia is a secular state and religion is not discussed in the workplace, nor given any importance.

Gender
 Women are as educated as men and thus have an equal opportunity for advancement in the professional hierarchies. However, salary equality is still poorly established, as is authority in a workplace.



Social statistics sources: WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF


The Data Factbook is a work in progress project. Our community is helping us to fill it up always with new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write your advices at imminent@translated.com


Languages research


Languages spoken in Croatia

Legend

  • Italian

  • Croatian

  • Czech

  • Slovak

  • Serbian Pannonian Rusyn

  • Hungarian

  • Pannonian Rusyn

  • Pannonian Rusyn Hungarian

  • Serbian


The language research that you will find in the maps published in this section is a work in progress. Our community is helping us to fill it up with always new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write to imminent.factbook@translated.com


Photo credit: Frans Ruiter, Unsplash