Krapina - map location
Krapina is a town in northern Croatia and the administrative centre of Krapina-Zagorje county with a population of 4,647 (2001) and a total municipality population of 12,950 (2001). Krapina is located in the hilly Zagorje region of Croatia, approximately 55 km away from both Zagreb and Varaždin. The town is the centre and capital of the district with the hundreds year old tradition.
In 1899, on a hill called Hušnjak near modern Krapina, the archaeologist and paleontologist Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger found over eight hundred fossil remains belonging to Neanderthals. Moreover, these fossil remains are said to exhibit traces of cannibalism.
Krapina itself has been known since 1193. It has always been a favourite site for castles and other country houses of Croatian and Hungarian rulers. In Krapina works the modern printing plant with very developed infrastructure apt for the various services, for the development of transit tourism etc. Among the cultural monuments the birth house of the writer and politician Ljudevit Gaj, the collection of Friars Monastery, the museum of evolution and the protected monuments. The church Godmother of Jerusalem should be mentioned.
Today it is a reasonably developed town, boasting its festival kajkavskih popevki sung in the local Kajkavian dialect of the Croatian language.
