Pozega-Slavonia County
Roman 'Vallis Aurea' (Golden Valley), Croatia's oldest wine region enclosed by Papuk Geopark mountains. 17% population collapse since 2011 despite 'Slavonian Athens' heritage—golden landscape emptying.
The Romans called it Vallis Aurea—the Golden Valley—for the wine that has grown on these slopes since antiquity. This basin in western Slavonia sits enclosed by a ring of mountains: Papuk rising to 953 meters in the north, Psunj and Krndija to the south, the Dilj and Požega hills completing the circuit. The enclosure creates both microclimate and identity—a distinct place defined by the landforms that surround it rather than by the rivers that typically shape Slavonian boundaries.
Papuk itself represents geological deep time made visible. As Croatia's only designated geopark, it exposes formations over 400 million years old—rocks that predate not just humans but vertebrate life on land. The mountains rose from the ancient Pannonian Sea, and the sediments that later filled the valley created the terroir that makes Kutjevo wines distinctive. The town of Kutjevo claims status as the 'historical capital' of Croatian wine, a tradition that survived 150 years of Ottoman occupation (1537-1687) and continues in the cellars of family estates.
Yet the Golden Valley is hemorrhaging people. Population dropped from 78,034 in 2011 to 64,420 by 2021—an 17.4% collapse ranking among Croatia's steepest. Požega, once called the 'Slavonian Athens' for its 19th-century cultural institutions, now loses 1.4% of its population annually as working-age residents leave for Zagreb or Germany. Lower wages and higher unemployment push people out; the wine and mountains that attracted Romans cannot compete with EU labor market access.
By 2026, Požega-Slavonia faces an existential choice: whether premium wine, geological tourism, and quality of life can anchor a population against the gravity of urban centers. The valley's enclosure that once protected its distinctiveness now threatens to become a basin that empties.