One person’s journey to a remote part of Croatia

The Pole of Inaccessibility is the location on land furthest from the ocean in any direction. The poles were calculated for the major land areas on the planet, primarily the major continents of North and South America, Africa, Australia, Eurasia and Antarctica.

But a different set of points can be calculated for any island, country or state with clearly defined boundaries. So, the Point of Inaccessibility is the place in the country that is furthest from the border (with the sea or another country) in any direction.

Points of inaccessibility (POIs) are calculated by creating a digital map of the country, paying particular attention to borders, and then running a series of iterations using modern computing power to determine exactly where the furthest from the borders is.

The points of interest for Croatia are approximately 55 km west of Zagreb, in the small village of Mostari, which is 61.4 km from the nearest border.

“You can’t get further from the border if you try. Of course, you will find a location further from one border, but in the other direction it will always be closer. So we can say that this is the most Croatian place in Croatia,” Chris Brown, who visited it this summer, tells us.

POI coordinates in Croatia:

Latitude: 45° 46.9747’N
Longitude: 16°29.8791’E

Chris, who has made visiting these places a personal hobby, has visited five of the seven main continental poles and about 20 other “spots” since the beginning of 2019, and has now crossed Croatia off his list.

“Mostari seemed like a nice village to me. Neat, well-groomed. I suspect it’s mostly an agricultural area, but it seemed wealthy. There was a “guard dog”, a rather intimidating Alsatian dog, but he was kind and accompanied us to the point, rather than trying to keep us from the shore,” Chris joked.

Chris tells us that he got the idea to visit the POI after talking with climbers participating in the Seven Summits Challenge.

“It seemed like a cool project, but I wasn’t really into mountaineering. That’s why I came up with the idea of ​​making a Pole of Inaccessibility on every continent,” he concludes.

You can read more about his travels in Croatia and other places on the website. Inaccessibility.no