Croatia Tied the World's Biggest Tie

Dubrovnik - Croatia tied the world's biggest tie after placing red thread round its 4,000 kilometers (2,480 miles) of borders to promote the country's cultural heritage and identity.

The "Tie Around Croatia" project, launched two months ago in the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik, concluded with a ceremonial tying of "the smallest knot of the biggest tie" in front of the church of St. Blaise, Dubrovnik's patron saint, in the center of the medieval town.

The main idea of the artistic installation was to link all Croatia's diverse regions into a symbolic whole, the Academia Cravatica, a non-governmental organisation behind the project. The word "Croata" can be found in many languages as the root of words meaning tie or cravat, so called because they were worn by Croats in the French army during the Thirty Years War in the 17th century.

A team of four mountaineers and three journalists installed the red thread along the country's borders over the past 60 days. In 2003 the Academia dressed up an ancient Roman amphitheater in the northern Adriatic town of Pula with an 800-meter (2,640-foot) red tie, breaking the then world record.