Once Over 12,500 in Zagreb, Only a Few Public Phone Booths Remain: Their Story

Once a ubiquitous feature of Zagreb's urban landscape, public telephone booths are now a rarity, with only a few remaining. Before the year 2000, Croatian Telecom data indicates there were over 12,500 such booths across Zagreb. Today, they are seldom seen, representing a bygone era before mobile phones became commonplace.

The history of public telephony in Croatia dates back to 1889 when the first public telephone booth was installed at the Zagreb railway station. The introduction of automatic telephone exchanges in Zagreb in 1928 led to the expansion of coin-operated public booths. In the latter half of the 20th century, telephone cards became the standard, with many people even collecting them.

More recently, digital public phone booths emerged about a decade ago. However, neither the modern nor the older versions are widely used today. These once-essential communication tools have gradually faded into obsolescence, becoming relics of a past time.