General information

Croatia is a country with over 1200 islands of which around 50 of them are permanently inhabited. That is why it is a perfect location for delivering a powerful international interdisciplinary island studies experience to ISISA members and local community.

Croatian Islands are inhabited more or less continuously from the pre-historic times so they are rich with cultural heritage and diverse archaeological sites. There are also many natural-geographical phenomena which played an important role in contemporary tourism development. Those islands are near islands so they are strongly influenced by nearby mainland which resulted in their specific socio-demographic development. Unfortunately, lately they are affected by many negative processes, such as depopulation, ageing and economic transformation which endangered many important traditional cultural landscapes and architectural elements. Even though Croatian islands share many elements in common, each island has its specificity and can be taken in consideration as an isolated case in any kind of scientific research.

Hosting other scientists specialised in island studies will help Croatian scientific community understand how islands and island archipelagos all over the world are dealing with similar challenges like Croatian islands. However, it will also be the unique opportunity for non-Croatian scientists to get familiar and to understand processes present at the Croatian archipelago which is still relatively unknown in worlds’ scientific literature. The exchange of experiences, knowledge and ideas on some of the most remote World areas would meet in the perfect ambient of the coastal town Zadar, the centre point of Zadar urban archipelago, and surrounding islands.

The main topic of the conference is Islands of the World but subthemes will cover different wide topics such as island development policies, population mobility, mainland-island relations, tourist development, islands’ heritage and tourism, SMART islands etc. Of course more than welcomed will be topics on islands during COVID pandemic.

More information about Isisa International Small Island Studies Association (ISISA) at: http://www.isisa.org/

More information about University of Zadar at: https://www.unizd.hr/eng/