page_title: Slavonia
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Slavonia / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: English: Percentage of citizens who declared nationality (ethnicity) other than Croat at the time of 2011 Census in Croatia (including undeclared and unknown ethnicity).
context_page_description: Slavonia is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Baranja, Požega-Slavonia, Virovitica-Podravina and Vukovar-Syrmia, although the territory of the counties includes Baranya, and the definition of the western extent of Slavonia as a region varies. The counties cover 12,556 square kilometres or 22.2% of Croatia, inhabited by 806,192—18.8% of Croatia's population. The largest city in the region is Osijek, followed by Slavonski Brod and Vinkovci.
  Slavonia is located in the Pannonian Basin, largely bordered by the Danube, Drava and Sava rivers. In the west, the region consists of the Sava and Drava valleys and the mountains surrounding the Požega Valley, and plains in the east. Slavonia enjoys a moderate continental climate with relatively low precipitation.
  After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which ruled the area of modern-day Slavonia until the 5th century, Ostrogoths and Lombards controlled the area before the arrival of Avars and Slavs, when the Principality of Lower Pannonia was established in the 7th century.
context_section_description: According to the 2011 census, the total population of the five counties of Slavonia was 806,192, accounting for 19% of population of Croatia. The largest portion of the total population of Slavonia lives in Osijek-Baranja county, followed by Vukovar-Syrmia county. Požega-Slavonia county is the least populous county of Slavonia. Overall the population density stands at 64.2 persons per square kilometre. The population density ranges from 77.6 to 40.9 persons per square kilometre, with the highest density recorded in Brod-Posavina county and the lowest in Virovitica-Podravina county. Osijek is the largest city in Slavonia, followed by Slavonski Brod, Vinkovci and Vukovar. Other cities in Slavonia have populations below 20,000. According to the 2001 census, Croats account for 85.6 percent of population of Slavonia, and the most significant ethnic minorities are Serbs and Hungarians, comprising 8.8 percent and 1.4 percent of the population respectively. The largest portion of the Serb minority was recorded in Vukovar-Syrmia county (15 percent), while the largest Hungarian minority, in both relative and absolute terms, was observed in Osijek-Baranja county. The census recorded 85.4% of the population declaring themselves as Catholic, with further 4.4% belonging to Serbian Orthodox Church and 0.7% Muslims. 3.1% declared themselves as non-religious, agnostics or declined to declare their religion. The most widely used language in the region is Croatian, declared as the first language by 93.6% of the total population, followed by Serbian (2.6%) and Hungarian (1.0%).
  The demographic history of Slavonia is characterised by significant migrations, as is that of Croatia as a whole, starting with the arrival of the Croats, between the 6th and 9th centuries. Following the establishment of the personal union of Croatia and Hungary in 1102, and the joining of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1527, the Hungarian and German speaking population of Croatia began gradually increasing in number. The processes of Magyarization and Germanization varied in intensity but persisted until the beginning of the 20th century. The Ottoman conquests initiated a westward migration of parts of the Croatian population; the Burgenland Croats are direct descendants of some of those settlers. To replace the fleeing Croats the Habsburgs called on the Orthodox populations of Bosnia and Serbia to provide military service in the Croatian Military Frontier. Serb migration into this region peaked during the Great Serb Migrations of 1690 and 1737–39. Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the Hungarian population declined, due to emigration and ethnic bias. The changes were especially significant in the areas north of the Drava river, and Baranja County where they represented the majority before World War I.
  Since the end of the 19th century there was substantial economic emigration abroad from Croatia in general. After World War I, the Yugoslav regime confiscated up to 50 percent of properties and encouraged settlement of the land by Serb volunteers and war veterans in Slavonia, only to have them evicted and replaced by up to 70,000 new settlers by the regime during World War II. During World War II and in the period immediately following the war, there were further significant demographic changes, as the German-speaking population, the Danube Swabians, were either forced or otherwise compelled to leave—reducing their number from the prewar German population of Yugoslavia of 500,000, living in Slavonia and other parts of present-day Croatia and Serbia, to the figure of 62,000 recorded in the 1953 census. The 1940s and the 1950s in Yugoslavia were marked by colonisation of settlements where the displaced Germans used to live, by people from the mountainous parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, and migrations to larger cities spurred on by the development of industry. In the 1960s and 1970s, another wave of economic migrants left—largely moving to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe.
  The most recent changes to the ethnic compositio
caption: Non-Croats in 5 Slavonian counties (2011).
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