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Krk

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Location of Krk in Croatia
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Location of Krk in Croatia

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.

Krk detail
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Krk detail

The municipalities and larger settlements on Krk include:

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.

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.

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).

Catholic bishopric

A Catholic diocese, called Veglia, existed, under Austrian rule suffragan of Görz-Gradisca. Parallel to the Dinaric Alps are a number of rocky islands, separated from the mainland by a deep, though narrow, strait. The largest of them is Veglia, which in the year 1000 had a bishop, Vitalis, who was preset at a synod in Spoleto. Pope Eugene III made it a suffragan of Zara, but since 1828 it has been under Görz. Bartholomaus Bozarich was present at the assembly of bishops in 1849 and his successor was a member of the First Vatican Council. Although Veglia is a triple see, it contained in heearly 20th entury only 809,000 Catholics, 95 secular priests, 64 regulars, and 68 nuns. Under bishop Antun Mahnić (1896-1920) the Altslawi academy was established in 1902, and existed until 1927.

Other

The fictional island Everon from the Video Game Operation Flashpoint is based on Krk.

Further reading

Sources and external links


[http://encycl.opentopia.com/ edit ] Municipalities of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County

Bakar | Baška | Brod Moravice |Cres |Crikvenica | Čabar | Čavle | Delnice | Dobrinj | Fužine | Jelenje | Kastav | Klana | Kostrena | Kraljevica | Krk | Lokve | Lovran | Mali Lošinj | Malinska-Dubašnica | Matulji | Mošćenička Draga | Mrkopalj | Novi Vinodolski | Omišalj | Opatija | Punat | Rab | Ravna Gora | Rijeka | Skrad | Vinodolska | Viškovo | Vrbnik | Vrbovsko

 


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