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Karlovac
County	Karlovac
Area	401 km²
Population (2001.)	59.395
Mayor	Miro Škrgatić

 

Karlovac (German: Karlstadt or Carlstadt, Hungarian: Károlyváros and sometimes in Croatian, "Marinograd") is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the whole municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants (2001). The absolute majority (85.86%) of its citizens are Croats (2001 census).

Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac county. The city is located on the Zagreb-Rijeka highway and railway line, 56 km south-west of Zagreb and 130 km from Rijeka.

Karlovac used to be known in Croatia as 'grad parkova' (the city of public parks) and 'grad na četiri rijeke' (the town built on four rivers) for its numerous green areas and four beautiful rivers, of which the Mrežnica, the Korana and the Kupa flow through built-up areas, and the Dobra is a few kilometers outside the city centre. These designations are now somewhat forgotten, but the beauty of the nature remains. A documentary film made by Veljko Bulajić in 1979 on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city plays much on that theme, and shows pictures of happy bathers on the Korana's Fogin beach (Foginovo kupalište) in the city centre.

One of the rarer trees found in the parks is the gingko biloba, which primary school children are taken out to see as part of their classes on nature and society. Most of the parks are planted in the former trenches dug around the old military fort that were once filled with water as an added layer of protection from the marauding Ottoman armies. One part of the city centre is still called Šanac ('trench') after those old trenches, which preserve the old hexagonal form of the historic centre.