Benkovac

Benkovac is a town and municipality in the interior of Zadar County, Croatia. Benkovac is located where the plain of Ravni Kotari and the karstic plateau of Bukovica meet, 20 km from the town of Biograd na Moru and 30 km from Zadar. The Zagreb-Split motorway and Zadar-Knin railway pass through the town. It borders the municipalities of Novigrad, Posedarje, Obrovac, Lišane Ostrovičke, Kistanje and Stankovci.

According to the 2001 census, the municipality had 9,786 inhabitants of which 90.4% were Croats and 7.5% Serbs. Before the war in Croatia, Serbs made up about 57%, and Croats about 41%, however Serbs only held 18% of the jobs in the local government, which led to high tensions in the 1990s. During the Operation Storm (Oluja), almost all of the Serbs fled, and after the war many Bosnian Croat refugees settled the area.

According to the Austrian Census in 1900, the town of Benkovac consisted of 356 Catholics and 156 Orthodox, with area surrounding Benkovac it included 8,119 Catholics and 5,981 Orthodox. The 1910 census recorded a total of 810 residents, 388 of which were Catholic and 422 Orthodox. Both censuses were conducted according to religion and language (Serbo-Croatian).