The paper presents the process of introduction of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units
for Statistics (NUTS) in Croatia. It discusses all criteria that should be applied during
and constraints that disabled reaching optimal solution. First constraint was the
EUROSTATís recommendation that the establishment of the Nomenclature of
Territorial Units for Statistics should be based on the existing administrative division of
the state territory. According to the main criteria (population size) the entire territory of
the Republic of Croatia represents NUTS level I, existing counties NUTS level III,
whereas the existing municipalities and cities fulfil criteria for NUTS IV level regions.
As there are no administrative territorial units that correspond to NUTS level II, which
is the main framework for the implementation of regional policy and the analysis of
regional problems and analyses, the most suitable solution is the formation of this level
by combining counties. The biggest problem is how to define the NUTS II level.