Quality of life comparison

compared to

If you lived in Croatia instead of Iowa, you would:

Economy

make 35.2% less money

Iowa has a GDP per capita of $63,747 as of 2024, while in Croatia, the GDP per capita is $41,300 as of 2023.

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be 83.6% more likely to be unemployed

In Iowa, 3.3% of adults are unemployed as of 2025. In Croatia, that number is 6.1% as of 2023.

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be 71.4% more likely to live below the poverty line

In Iowa, 10.5% live below the poverty line as of 2023. In Croatia, however, that number is 18.0% as of 2021.

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The statistics above were calculated using the following data sources: The World Factbook, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Census Bureau (American Community Survey), Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Compare further: Iowa vs. Croatia

Cost of Living Comparison · 7 categories - 2026 data
Croatia is 11.6% cheaper than Iowa
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Size Comparison · See true size
Iowa is about 2.6 times bigger than Croatia.
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Croatia: At a glance

Croatia is a sovereign country in Europe, with a total land area of approximately 55,974 sq km. The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands, along with a majority of Croatia's ethnic Serb population. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. The country joined NATO in April 2009 and the EU in July 2013.
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How big is Croatia compared to Iowa? See an in-depth size comparison.

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