Croatia is a European state situated at the contact of the Middle and South-East Europe – from the furthest eastern rims of the Alps in the north-west to the Pannonia Plane and the Danube River bank in the east and the Adriatic Sea coastline in the south. The Croatian Adriatic coast is 1,777 km long and well-indented with more than 1,200islands, islets and rocks. With a pleasant, moderate continental climate in the interior of the country and a warm Mediterranean climate in the costal area, Croatia has today a population of 4.5 million inhabitants–of which are mainlyCroats (90.42%), while the remaining are national minorities (the most numerous being: Serbs, Bosniaks, Slovenians, Hungarians, Czechs, Italians and Albanians).
Croatia is a young, independent, democratic multiparty parliamentary republic, independent from 1991 and internationally recognised as such on 15 January 1992. It is a country which throughout its long and dynamic history has inherited the richness of a variety of influences and interferences of the Mediterranean, Middle-European and Ottoman-Turkish cultural circles. On 1 July 2013 Croatia became a member of the European Union – on which occasion the commemorative postage stamp and the souvenir sheet “Accession of the Republic of Croatia to the EU” was issued.
Apart from its natural beauty and rich cultural and historical heritage Croatia is today also known for its world renowned scientists and artists, its sports successes, gastronomy and many tourist destinations which are also successfully represented on Croatian postage stamps.
For more than twenty years Croatian Post has been issuing postage stamps, starting from the first issue on 9 September 1991. Some of the popular stamp series issued during many years, such as Croatian Flora, Croatian Fauna, Ethnographic Heritage, Lighthouses, Castles, Locomotives, Christmas…, have become favourite collectors' items for many philatelists. Apart from the diversity of its motifs Croatian postage stamps are also characterised by high quality artistic and graphic design – created by our most prominent academic painters and graphic artists.This is also the reason why Croatian postage stamps have with time gained a noted reputation and success in the world.