Krk

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:CroatiaKrk.png Krk (Italian Veglia, Latin Curicta) is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county.

Krk is the second largest Adriatic island, with an area of 405 km² (exactly 405,218.994 m², just slightly smaller than Cres), and also the second most populous one, with numerous towns and villages totalling 16,402 (2001). Although the recent surveys showed that Cres is the largest Croatian island it is still general opinion in Croatia that Krk is largest.

Image:Krk.jpg The municipalities and larger settlements on Krk include:

The eponymous city of Krk, with 5,491 inhabitants (2001), located at Template:Coor dm.
Omišalj, 2,998 people
Malinska-Dubašnica, 2,726 people
Punat, 1,876 people
Dobrinj, 1,970 people
Baška, 1,554 people
Vrbnik, 1,245 people

1 Economics and infrastructure
2 History
3 Culture and religion
4 Further reading
5 External links

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Economics and infrastructure

Krk is located rather near the mainland and has been connected to it via a 1,430 meter two-arch concrete bridge since 1980, one of the longest concrete bridges in the world. Due to the proximity to the city of Rijeka, Omišalj also hosts the Rijeka International Airport as well as an oil refinery (related to the Rijeka port tanker facilities). A monastery lies on the small island of Košljun in a bay off the coast of Krk.

Krk is a popular tourist destination, because of the situation and proximity to southern Germany, Austria, and northern Italy. Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, many tourists have appeared from Hungary, Romania, and other former Eastern Bloc countries.

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History

The island has been inhabited since before 10th century BCE. The Romans called the island Curicta. During the Roman Civil War, the Bay of Curicta was the scene of sea combat between the fleets of Caesar and Pompeius.

Over a thousand years later, the island was the center of the Vegliot dialect of the Dalmatian language. Krk was also the seat of medieval bishops and important nobility, the Frankopans.

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Culture and religion

Krk has historically been a center of Croatian culture. Various literature in Glagolitic alphabet was created and in part preserved on Krk (notably the Baška Tablet, the oldest preserved text in Croatian).

Under bishop Antun Mahnić (1896-1920) the Altslawi academy was established in 1902, and existed until 1927.

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