The results were presented by Tamara Kraus of the GfK market research agency at a ceremony marking Book Night 2015 at the National and University Library in Zagreb on Thursday.
The survey revealed that 51% of the respondents had read at least one book over the last year, compared with 53% last year. People in Zagreb and along the Adriatic coast read above the national average (62%).
Respondents said that they mostly borrowed books, mostly from libraries (51%), while 56% said they bought them in bookshops. About 800,000 people (22%) older than 15 have bought a book in the last three months, and 72% bought it for themselves or for their children.
Books are mostly read by highly-educated people (77%), those living in large urban areas (70%), young people under 25 (61%) and women (57%). People mostly read fiction (64%), technical literature (30%), non-fiction (28%) and books of reference (18%).
People still read mostly in Croatian (89%), and 43% read Croatian authors as often as translated works of foreign authors. The proportion of people reading e-books remained unchanged from 2014 at 12%.
The survey was conducted in March 2015 on a sample of 1,000 respondents above the age of 15.