摘要：The Islands of the Croatian Adriatic Sea have been confronted with an increasing problem of depopulation in the last century. There are many reasons for this. One of the most important is the limited economic development which is today almost exclusively based on tourism. The Adriatic Sea offers a great opportunity for the development of fisheries and related fishery processing industry. In the period between the late 19th and beginning of 20th century the development of the sterilized canning process led to the prosperity of this industry. Numerous fish processing plants were opened along the entire Adriatic coast and they played a key role in island life in this period. They filled the employment gap created by the decline in agriculture providing employment for workers and directly supporting the local fisheries. Since the turn of the century the number of fish processing plants on Croatian coast and islands has consistently declined. Today, there are five fish processing plants in Croatia, only two of which are located on the islands. The closure of fish processing plants on Croatian islands is frequently connected with their depopulation. The aim of this paper is to identify connections between island demographics and the closure of the processing plants.
关键词：Adriatic Sea; islands; inhabitants; depopulation; fish processing plants
