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This paper compares the administrative-territorial organisation of Croatia with the organisation in other European countries, with an emphasis on geographical aspects - primarily size (territory) and number of inhabitants of administrative units. The introduction provides an analytical review of the recent papers on this topic, and then an analysis of the current territorial division of Croatia and its former division into regions (groups of municipalities) and so-called “large” municipalities. This is followed by an overview of territorial organisation in other European countries, which is compared with Croatia, with focus on the need to emphasise the relationship between territorial organisation and the size of a particular state. The final part of the paper contains proposals for the administrative division of Croatian territory based on the spatial distribution of the population and the main urban centres, using the application of the best practices in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper closely examines the fluctuations in development of agricultural cooperatives in Croatia during their 150-year-long tradition, as well as recent development trends, and spatially-differentiated development in the contemporary era. The results show that, despite the long tradition, contemporary Croatian cooperatives have been faced with a series of development problems. The main cause of that situation is inadequate legislation - a poorly adjusted law on cooperatives and correlative laws that are relevant for the functioning of cooperative entrepreneurship. This reflects unfavourably in all cooperative sectors, specifically agricultural cooperatives as its most developed sector. This has resulted in a marginal contribution of cooperatives to the socioeconomic development of the nation's demographically ever more destabilised rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]