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The Lombards and the Huns made an incursion from the north. After 476 the area was subject to Odoacer and then to Ostrogoth rulers beginning with Theodoric the Great. Justinian claimed the old province of Dalmatia to the Eastern Roman Empire in 535. Forebears of Croatia's current Slav population settled there in the 7th century following the Avars, partly under instructions from Byzantine emperor Heraclius.

The Croatian national revival began in the 1830s with the Illyrian Movement. The movement was misnamed (some wrongly thought that they primarily descended from the ancient Illyrians rather than the Slav settlers), but it nevertheless attracted a number of influential figures and produced some important advances in the Croatian language and culture. The champion of the Illyrian movement was Ljudevit Gaj who also reformed and standardized the Croatian literary language.

Any negative trends in the large EU economies such as Germany or Italy also have a negative impact on Croatia as they are its biggest trade partners.

Due to the elections, the HDZ government promises two salary increases to public-sector employees before the end of the year which increases the fiscal deficit.

Western aid and investment, especially in the tourist and oil industries, is helping restore the economy. The government has been successful in some reform efforts — partially macroeconomic stabilization policies — and it has normalized relations with its creditors.

In recorded history, the area was inhabited by the Illyrians, and since the 4th century BC also colonized by the Celts and by the Greeks.

Ambroz Matija Gubec and other leaders of the mutiny raised peasants to arms in over sixty fiefs throughout the country in January 1573, but their uprising was crushed by early February. Matija Gubec and thousands of others were publicly executed shortly thereafter, in a rather brutal manner in order to set an example for others.