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Contemporary Aspects of the Geographical Regionalization and Administrative-Territorial Organization of Croatia

The tendencies of contemporary regional development of Croatia are also manifested in direct consequences of an uneven and overemphasized process of polarization. Not infrequently they point to a certain lack of harmony between administrative-territorial organization of Croatia and the principles of geographic regionalization. This disharmony does not characterize only present-day territorial division of the country. It was present in older divisions too. For quite a while it has reflected on the continued problems of administrative- territorial organization coexistence especially with functional and natural-geographic potentials of certain geographic regions. The divergence of the contemporary model of local government from hoped-for regional organization models is accompanied also by too frequent changes of territorial system i. e. changes within territorial division and the organization of the country. In the first part of the paper the author points to the theoretical approaches of the geographic reorganization in the world and Croatian literature, emphasizing in particular home geographers’ contributions. He treats also the problems of the application of geographic reorganization principles in Croatia as well as the elements of the Croatian administrative- territorial organisation from World War II to the beginning of the 21st century. Scientific well-foundedness of the model i. e. of the organization and structure of local districts, towns and counties, precisely on the principles of regionalization and its economic basis alike, are the essential preconditions of the system stability i. e. of survival and durability. Time shows just through (in) stability of the organization how much a new organization is based on scientific determinants and how much on local central-political determinants. In many countries the application of certain models of administrative-territorial organization of dispersion and decentralisation was not successful especially owing to the impossibility of alimenting all necessities of local autonomy so that the concentrated system i. e. centralization was used, which resulted in reinforced polarization. This problem was present in Croatia quite a while, evidently as the consequence of too frequent territorial organization changes or politically compromise and simplified solutions. The problem of the new administrative- political organization acclimatisation, i. e. acclimatisation of the contemporary model of local autonomy introduced in 1993, has not been substantially manifested. Taking the general view, the positive process of decentralization stimulated the activation and strengthening of local resources as well as comprehensive and more diffuse development in the national space. However, from the geographical viewpoint, the measure of fragmentation/particularisms is disputable in particular cases, when the national territory is administratively parcelised out to the utmost. It is specially noticeable in cases when forming a local district which consists of a single smaller settlement without adequate economic force to cope with the burden of the proper district administration on its own. Changes in territorial structure of Croatia, which happened as early as 4-5 years after (1997), were, however, not substantially radical to point to more serious disarrangements or mistakes. But an open question remains: working out models of geographical differentiation of Croatian territory applying quantifiable methods. Taking into consideration nodal-functional approach, as well as the facts of strong polarization, the author aims at giving spatial conception of Croatian territory differentiation on the regional level, respecting territorial partition in existing counties, towns and local districts.

Regionalization; Administrative-Territorial Organization; Croatia; Geographical Regionalization; Physiognomic Regionalization; Conditionally Homogeneous Regionalization; Nodal-Functional Regionalization; Polarization

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