Depopulacija županija i disparitet u regionalnom razvoju Hrvatske
Depopulation of Counties and Disparity in the Regional Development of Croatia

Summary/Abstract: Differences in regional development have had great importance in determining the direction and intensity of the spatial redistribution of Croatia's population during the second half of the last century. Hence population polarisation and the damaging influence of the war from the first half of the 1990s have given rise to more or less intensive depopulation in the last period between censuses which has affected about 85% of the country's territory. The depopulation of counties as a result of Croatia's regional disparities in the period from 1961 to 2001 has been analysed in the paper, as well as the retroactive influence of population polarisation and economic activities on the existing regional development. Differences in the development of counties have been interpreted through the model of cumulative causality of the occurrence of regional disparity, while spatial distribution of the population between the less developed counties and the centres of polarised development has been examined through the relationship centre – periphery. The research has shown that the greatest developmental setback and consequent decline of population since the early 1960s has been registered by counties with a peripheral position and less developed main central settlement. Rapid ageing and the deteriorated vitality of the population, as a result of emigration processes until the early 1990s, and the damaging impact of the war which followed, caused the highest rates of depopulation also between 1991 and 2001.

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