Dalmatian Hinterland in the context of "Krajina"

Dalmatia (/dælˈmeɪʃə, -tiə/ ; Croatian: Dalmacija [dǎlmatsija]; Italian: Dalmazia [dal'mattsja]) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. It is a narrow land belt stretching from the island of Rab in the north to the Bay of Kotor in the south. The Dalmatian Hinterland ranges in width from 50 kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south; it is mostly covered by the rugged Dinaric Alps. Seventy-nine islands (and about 500 islets) run parallel to the coast, the largest (in Dalmatia) being Brač, Pag, and Hvar. The largest city is Split, followed by Zadar, Šibenik, and Dubrovnik.

The name of the region stems from an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, who lived in the area in classical antiquity. With the expansion of Rome, the province of Illyricum was established, and in the early 1st century it was reorganised into the province of Dalmatia, which stretched over a vast territory. Consequently, a Romance culture emerged, and the indigenous Illyrian population became romanised. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Migration Period, many different peoples passed through Dalmatia. While the local Illyro-Romans organized themselves around their city-states under Byzantine protection, the Croats arrived in the early 7th century and established the Duchy of Croatia, later becoming vassals of the Franks. With the Christianisation of the Croats, Slavic and Illyro-Roman elements began to intermingle in both language and culture. The Kingdom of Croatia was founded in 925, and it later incorporated the Theme of Dalmatia.

Morlachs (Serbo-Croatian: Morlaci, Морлаци; Italian: Morlacchi; Romanian: Morlaci) is an exonym used for a rural Christian community in Herzegovina, Lika and the Dalmatian Hinterland. The term was initially used for a bilingual Vlach pastoralist community in the mountains of Croatia from the second half of the 14th until the early 16th century. Then, when the community straddled the Venetian–Ottoman border until the 17th century, it referred only to the Slavic-speaking people of the Dalmatian Hinterland, Orthodox and Catholic, on both the Venetian and Turkish side.

The exonym ceased to be used in an ethnic sense by the end of the 18th century, and came to be viewed as derogatory, but has been renewed as a social or cultural anthropological subject. As the nation-building of the 19th century proceeded, the Vlach/Morlach population residing with the Croats and Serbs of the Dalmatian Hinterland espoused either a Croat or Serb ethnic identity, but preserved some common sociocultural outlines.

The Serbs of Croatia or Croatian Serbs, are a recognized ethnic minority in Croatia. According to data from the 2021 census, the population of ethnic Serbs in Croatia is 123,892, constituting 3.2% of the total population.

In some regions of modern-day Croatia, such as southern Dalmatia, ethnic Serbs have been present from the Early Middle Ages. Serbs from modern-day Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina started migrating to Croatia during the Habsburg monarchy's long series of wars against the Ottoman Empire. Several migration waves of Serbs occurred after 1538, when Habsburg Monarchy granted them the right to settle on the territory of the Military Frontier, populating the Dalmatian Hinterland, Lika, Kordun, Banija, and Slavonia. In exchange for land and exemption from taxation, they had to conduct military service and participate in the protection of the border. Following the 1848 revolution and the abolition of the Military Frontier in the 1870s-1880s, rising Croatian national sentiment and the growth of Yugoslav-oriented ideas among some Serb intellectuals led to increasing political tension, culminating in the formation of the Serb Independent Party and growing rivalry with Croatian nationalist movements.