One man’s journey to Croatia’s point of inaccessibility

Chris at the Croatian POI (Photo: Private album)

A Pole of Inaccessibility is the location on a landmass which is furthest from the Ocean in any direction. The Poles have been calculated for the major landmasses on the planet, primarily being the main continents North and South America, Africa, Australia, Eurasia and Antarctica.

But another set of points can be calculated for any island, country or state with well defined borders. So, a Point of Inaccessibility is the location in a country which is furthest from the border (with a sea or other country) in any direction.

Points of Inaccessibility (POI’s) are calculated by making a digital map of the country, paying particular attention to the borders, then running a set of iterations with modern computational powers, to determine where, exactly is the furthest from the borders.

The POI for Croatia lies roughly 55km West of Zagreb in a small village called Mostari, which is 61.4km to the nearest border.  

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

Chris holds up the Croatan flag in Mostari at the POI (Photo: Private album)

The coordinates for the Croatian POI are:

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

The location of Mostari on the map

Chris, who has made it a personal hobby of his to visit these places, has visited five of the seven major continental poles and around 20 other “Points” since starting in 2019, and now has ticked Croatia off his list.   

“Mostari seemed like a nice village. Tidy, well-kept.  I suspect it is mostly a farming area, but seemed affluent. There was a ‘guard dog’, a rather intimidating Alsatian, but it turned out to be a softie and accompanied us to the point, rather than trying to keep us off the land,” joked Chris.

The friendly dog in Mostari (Privare album)

Chris tells us he got the idea to visit the POI’s from talking to mountaineers who were doing the Seven Summits challenge. 

“It seemed like a cool project, but I wasn’t that much into mountaineering. So I came up with the idea of doing the Pole of Inaccessibility on each continent,” he concludes. 

You can read more about his journey in Croatia and other locations on the website Inaccessability.net