Cities of Croatia

An urbanized area in Croatia can gain the status of grad (which can be translated as town or city as there is no distinction between the two terms in Croatian) if it meets one of the following requirements:

A city (town) represents an urban, historical, natural, economic and social whole. The suburbs comprising an economic and social whole with the city, connected with it by daily migration movements and daily needs of the population of local significance, may also be included into the composition of a city as unit of local self-government.

Grad (city/town) is the local administrative equivalent of općina (translated as "municipality"), with the only distinction being that the former usually comprise urban areas whereas the latter commonly consist of a group of villages. Note that both municipalities and city/towns often comprise more than one settlement, as the administrative territory of a grad may include suburban villages or hamlets near the city/town in question. Individual settlement (or naselje in Croatian) are the smallest statistical unit counted by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics but are not administrative entities, i.e. they are governed by the municipal or city/town council of the local administrative unit they belong to.

Croatian cities are administratively subdivided into "city districts" (gradski kotari) and/or "local committee areas" (mjesni odbori) with elected councils. The City of Zagreb, as the capital, not being part of any county, is subdivided into "city districts"/"boroughs" (gradske četvrti) and "local committee areas" (mjesni odbori).

According to the Constitution, the city of Zagreb, as the capital of Croatia, has a special status. As such, Zagreb performs self-governing public affairs of both city and county.

Cities, within their self-governing scope of activities, perform the tasks of local significance, which directly fulfil the citizens’ needs, and which were not assigned to the state bodies by the Constitution or law, particularly the tasks referring to urban design of settlements and dwelling, zoning and urban planning, communal activities, child care, social welfare, primary health care, personality development and primary education, culture, physical culture and sports, consumers protection, protection and improvement of the natural environment, fire and civil defence, local transport. "Big cities" (cities with more than 35 000 inhabitants that are also economic, financial, cultural, public health, scientific or traffic centres) and cities that are county seats, in addition to these tasks, are also responsible for tasks regarding public roads maintenance and issuing of building and location permits.

...
Wikipedia