DEPOPULATION ON THE KVARN AND DALMATIAN I SLANDS - PROCESSES AND STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENTS

Because of their peripheral situation, the Kvarn and Dalmatian islands constitute one of the classic depopulation areas of the Mediterranean . The main reasons for this decrease are socio-economic factors, such as the loss in importance of sailing ship transport during the 19th ce ntury, a crisis of viticulture - the main source of income from agricu ltural activities -, and the effects of a rent-capitalistic system in agriculture. In spite of that there was no depopulation proper in the eastern Adriatic islands up to the 20th century due to the fact that t he birthrate was much higher than the deathrate. Another reason for th e decline was the exodus of the Italian minority after World War I. Wh en looking at census data one finds that there was an increase in popu lation between 1857 and World War I followed by a sharp decline up to the 1970s and then an increase again. It is, however, to be assumed th at these (unexpected) most recent figures must be attributed to summer tourism and mainly to inconsistencies in census procedure. Therefore, the principal features of the population structure still are the high deathrate characteristic of peripheral regions, a declining birthrate and a high ratio of elderly people among the residents. From a region al point of view, it is mainly the tiny islands in the Dalmatian archi pelago that have been abandoned already or an threatened by abandonmen t, but the larger number of bigger settlements no longer inhabited all the year round lie on the Kvarn islands. In the aftermath of the war in former Yugoslavia tourism, the activity most important for the econ omy on the whale, recovered more quickly on the Kvarn islands as they were more distant from the theatre of war than die Dalmatian islands g roups. Incidentally no direct effects of these struggles on the demogr aphic structure of the eastern Adriatic archipelago could be observed.