The Croatian diaspora (Croatian: Hrvatsko iseljeništvo or Hrvatsko rasuće) consists of ethnic Croat people, their descendants, and Croatian citizens living outside of Croatia. An excess of four million people are part of the Croatian diaspora. The nationality laws of Croatia affords citizenship by birth, ancestry, and naturalization, growing the Croatian citizen population living abroad.
Estimates on its size are only approximate because of incomplete statistical records and naturalization, but upper-level estimates suggest that the Croatian diaspora numbers between a third and a half of the total number of Croats. Within neighboring Southeast Europe, the largest community are with the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the constituent nations of that country, amounting to about 545,000. Outside of these two regions, broader Europe is home to around one million Croatians, with 1.7 million living overseas. The largest diaspora community is in the United States at 1.2 million Croatian Americans, which significantly influence Croatia–United States relations. In Western Europe, the largest group is found in Germany with a reported 228,000 Croatian Germans as of 2006, with some estimates including naturalized citizens as high as 500,000. There are significant numbers of the diaspora in the Indo-Pacific, mainly in Australia (165,000) and New Zealand (up to 100,000).
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