Belo, Croatia
Village in Croatia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Belo is a village in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in Croatia, on the territory of the city of Delnice. It lies in the Kupa river valley, locally known as the Kupska dolina or Dolina leptira ("Valley of Butterflies"), a canyon-like stretch of the valley with a milder climate than the rest of the otherwise mountainous Gorski kotar region.[3]
Administration and geography
Belo is one of 55 settlements that make up the city (grad) of Delnice, which together cover an area of about 230 square kilometres (89 sq mi) and had a combined population of 5,952.[4] Within the city's local self-government structure, Belo belongs to the local board (mjesni odbor) of Brod na Kupi, alongside Čedanj, Donji Ložac, Golik, Gornje and Donje Tihovo, Grbajel, Guče Selo, Gusti Laz, Iševnica, Kočićin, Krivac, Kupa, Kuželj, Mala and Velika Lešnica, Suhor, Radočaj Brodski, Ševalj, Zagolik, and Zamost and Zapolje Brodsko.[5]
At 215 metres (705 ft), Belo lies at the lowest elevation recorded within the Delnice city area, a point situated between the villages of Čedanj and Kupa.[6] The surrounding Kupska dolina is home to close to 500 recorded butterfly species — around 60% of Croatia's total butterfly fauna — a diversity attributed to the valley's milder, lower-lying canyon climate.[3] Villages in the valley, including Belo, lie in an area brought under organised rule from the 15th century onward by the Frankopan and Zrinski families, who settled Gorski kotar largely with Čakavian-speaking population drawn from their Vinodol and coastal estates; descendants of earlier Kupa-valley inhabitants who had fled Ottoman incursions into Carniola later returned to resettle the Kupska dolina as far as Delnice.[7] Parts of Gorski kotar, including the Delnice area, speak a Kajkavian dialect locally known as Goranian.[7]
History
It was recorded as Beloszelo on the 1673 map of Stjepan Glavač, alongside the neighbouring settlements of Golik and Brod na Kupi.[8]
Thurn and Taxis Affair
A 22 December 1939 decision as part of agrarian reforms by Ban Šubašić to confiscate the local forest property of the Thurn and Taxis family, Kálmán Ghyczy and Nikola Petrović resulted in a legal dispute known as the Thurn and Taxis Affair, in part because of the relative status of the family and in part because of the proximity to the Italian border.[9][10]
At around 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres), Prince Albert of Thurn und Taxis was the largest private forest owner in the interwar Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, with the bulk of the estate — some 42,307 jutra out of a total 55,865 jutra of estate forest — situated in Gorski kotar.[11][12] In July 1920, the agrarian-reform ministry ordered the expropriation of about 21,000 jutra of forest from the Ghyczy and Thurn-Taxis holdings, of which 13,912 jutra came from the Thurn-Taxis estate and just over 7,000 jutra from Ghyczy's; these forests were placed under the administration of a forestry official attached to the royal district authorities in Delnice, Čabar and Vrbovsko.[13] An earlier scandal over the same estate, sometimes separately referred to as the Thurn-Taxis affair of the 1920s, involved allegations that Justice Minister Edo Lukinić had accepted payment in connection with the 1925 lifting of a sequestration order on the property.[14]
The wider dispute between the state and Prince Thurn-Taxis over the expropriated Gorski kotar forests continued until it was settled in October 1939, with the settlement given legal force by a Council of Ministers decree (no. 1566) of 1 December 1939.[11] The provisional administration of the expropriated forests in Delnice, referenced above, was in turn abolished by the 22 December 1939 order and replaced with a commission for the liquidation of the expropriated estate forests.[11]
Following Croatia's accession to the European Union, heirs of the Thurn-Taxis and Ghyczy families have pursued restitution proceedings seeking the return of Gorski kotar forest land now managed by the state forestry company Hrvatske šume, reporting on which has so far remained inconclusive as to outcome. Representatives of private forest owners in the region and of Hrvatske šume have stated that, under Croatia's 1996 restitution law, property already lawfully transferred to private third parties cannot be returned in kind, limiting any restitution to state-paid compensation.[15]
Water supply
On 7 November 2024, the villagers of Donji Ložac, Radočaj Brodski, Gusti Laz, Grbajel, Golik, Belo, Čedanj and Kupa were informed that their tap water was not bacteriologically safe to drink, following sampling carried out on 29 October 2024 by the county public health institute.[16] The advisory was one of several issued for settlements in the Kupska dolina in 2024, indicating a recurring rather than isolated contamination issue in the valley's water supply.[17]
Demographics
| population | 82 | 86 | 81 | 74 | 67 | 77 | 76 | 66 | 43 | 33 | 30 | 24 | 14 | 23 | 13 | 9 | 6 |
| 1857 | 1869 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1921 | 1931 | 1948 | 1953 | 1961 | 1971 | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 | 2011 | 2021 |
Sports
Gallery
Crucifix bógac
Kupa by Belo (downstream)
Kupa by Belo (upstream)
