Donji Lapac

Donji Lapac is located a region of eastern Lika called Ličko Pounje, by the river Una that flows near the town in the valley between mountain Plješevica and Una on the altitude of 582 m. It is connected with the road that connects Bihać with Gračac.

The area of Donji Lapac has been inhabited since the Iron Age, which many material remains prove. During medieval times the area of Lapac was part of old-Croatian Lapac župa, related to Lapčan family, and in 1449 it became a possession of Frankopan family. Old city Lapac was located on a nearby Obljaj hill (666 m) south from Donji Lapac. When in 1528 Ottomans conquered Lika, Lapac was absorbed.

Donji Lapac was founded in 1791, in the year the Austro-Ottoman war ended and Eastern Lika was annexed by Habsburg empire as a frontier post. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Donji Lapac was a district capital in the Lika-Krbava County of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. In 1941 Yugoslav partisans liberated the district center.

During the Croatian War of Independence, Donji Lapac was incorporated along with other towns into the unrecognized breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina. In August 1995, it was returned to Croatian control following victories by the Croatian army.

According to the 2011 census, the town has population of 946 and a municipality of 2,113 people.[3] Before the war the area was almost entirely Serb-populated with only 0.67% Croats (according to the 1991 census). After the war the area of Donji Lapac municipality grew smaller because villages of Donji Srb and Gornji Srb were given to Municipality of Gračac in Zadar County. However, according to the 2011 census Serbs continue to constitute a majority of 80.6%, with 18.8% of Croat population.[4]

Some Croats or Serbs declared their ethnicity as Yugoslav.

Donji Lapac is underdeveloped municipality which is statistically classified as the First Category Area of Special State Concern by the Government of Croatia.[6] Before the war, Donji Lapac had a developed wood and textile industry. Many people worked in the transportation company Likatrans which employed more than 200 people. Today most of the inhabitants are unemployed and jobs are mostly restricted to public services or the renewed wood industry. Additionally many people work in basic agriculture, growing mostly potatoes and plums from which they make the alcohol Slivovitz.

• Birovača
• Boričevac
• Brezovac Dobroselski
• Bušević
• Dnopolje
• Dobroselo
• Doljani
• Donji Lapac
• Donji Štrbci
• Gajine
• Gornji Lapac
• Gornji Štrbci
• Kestenovac
• Kruge
• Melinovac
• Mišljenovac
• Nebljusi
• Oraovac

• Milan Đukić, Croatian Serb politician
• Veljko Narančić, Yugoslav athlete
• Stevo Krnjajić, Yugoslav actor

• Savezni zavod za statistiku i evidenciju FNRJ i SFRJ, popis stanovništva 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981. i 1991. godine.
• Knjiga: "Narodnosni i vjerski sastav stanovništva Hrvatske, 1880–1991: po naseljima, autor: Jakov Gelo, izdavač: Državni zavod za statistiku Republike Hrvatske, 1998., ISBN 953-6667-07-X, ISBN 978-953-6667-07-9;

• Official site (in Croatian)