Original scientific paper
Croatia Within the Europe's Rural Space
Josip Defilippis
Abstract
Applying criteria established by OECD and EU, the author analyzes demographic, economic and territorial characteristics of Croatia's and
European Union's respective rural spaces. Due to the fact that for a
long time rural areas in Croatia hasn't been the subject of social interest and systematic care - although rural space holds approximately 85% of Europe's and Croatia's respective total area and despite the fact that about 40% of European Union's and 44% of
Croatia's total population respectively live there, living conditions and
demographic movements are different: since the 1970's rural population in Europe has been gradually growing white in Croatia it has been constantly decreasing since the Second World War. The analysis of economic characteristics shows that the gross national product per capita in rural areas is regularly lower than the general
average in the European Union's member countries and in Croatia, that agriculture and forestry ceased to be main economic activities
of rural space, and that along with changes in the countryside economic structure the changes in social structure take place: farming
population makes only 4,9% Europe's and 5,6% Croatia's respective
total population, and the countryside residents are to great extent occupied in agriculture as a part-time activity so a mixed economy
model is being developed. Finally, the author shows that density of
population in Croatia's space is less than that in Europe, and that due
to proprietorship structure and to non-rational use of land resources
- although »richer« in land resources - Croatia is still not able to satisfy all the needs for food and imports it from Europe which is
»poorer« in terms of land resources.
Keywords
rural space; populousness; economic characteristics; use; Croatia; EU
Hrčak ID:
33389
URI
Publication date:
11.3.2009.
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