The World Factbook is a source of data about countries all around the globe published each year by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The Republic of Croatia is just one of the world countries covered by CIA's data. The Agency brings short history of Croatia, its society, population, army forces, political leadership etc.
The CIA states that the lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of the World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenians formed a Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Following the World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. However, Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Furthermore, the Agency describes Croatia as one of the wealthiest of the former Yugoslav republics, but also emphasizes that the country's economy suffered badly during the 1991-1995 Homeland war. ‘’Croatia’s output during that time collapsed, and the country missed the early waves of investment in Central and Eastern Europe. Between 2000 and 2007, Croatia's economic fortunes began to improve. However, the country experienced an abrupt slowdown in the economy in 2008 and since then it has been slowly recovering’’, reported CIA.
These are only some of the facts stated by the American Intelligence Agency; you can check the rest of the data here