Plaà ¡ki is a village and a municipality in Karlovac County, Croatia. It is part of the region of Lika.
Plaà ¡ki is situated in the lower part of the Ogulin-Plaà ¡ki valley. Together with Gorski kotar and Lika, the Ogulin-Plaà ¡ki valley forms Mountainous Croatia. The town of Plaà ¡ki is situated 28 km south from Ogulin and shares borders with municipalities of Ogulin, Josipdol and Saborsko.
Since records began in 1960, the highest temperature recorded at the local weather station was , on 8 August 2013. The coldest temperature was , on 12 January 1985.
In 1895, the obÃÂina of Plaà ¡ki (court at Plaà ¡ki), with an area of (highest in the à ¾upanija), belonged to the kotar of Ogulin (Ogulin court but Plaà ¡ki electoral district) in the à ¾upanija of Modruà ¡-Rieka (Ogulin high court and financial board). There were 1423 houses, with a population of 9187 (highest in Ogulin kotar). Its 8 villages and 116 hamlets were divided for taxation purposes into 10 porezne obÃÂine, under the Ogulin office.
The municipality consists of several settlements:
Serbian and Croatian are co-official at the municipal level in Plaà ¡ki. As of 2023, none of the legal requirements for the fulfillment of bilingual standards have been carried out. Cyrillic is not used on official building signage, street signs, traffic signs or seals. Cyrillic is not used on any official documents, nor are there public legal and administrative employees proficient in the script. Of the officially bilingual municipalities in Croatia, it shared not having Cyrillic even on official building signage only with GraÃÂac and the recently officially bilingual Orehovica.
In 33 BC the Romans, led by the future Emperor Octavian Augustus, won a battle against an Illyrian tribe, the Japods, in the area east of Plaà ¡ki. Roman coins have been found in Plaà ¡ki which proves that this region was inhabited in Roman times.
The name Plaà ¡ki was first mentioned in 1163 in documents of the Diocese of Split of the Roman Catholic Church. The second mention of the village dates from 1185 and relates to the establishment of the new Krbava diocese, which the parish of Plaà ¡ki became a part of. Plaà ¡ki county (Comitatus Plazy) was a separate administrative region until 1193, when it became part of Modruà ¡ county and came to be owned by the Frankopan family. In the name of Frankopans Plaà ¡ki was governed by the Zebiàfamily of nobles, who were their loyal vassals (even today a part of Plaà ¡ki is called ZebiÃÂi).
In 1492 just before the Battle of Krbava Plaà ¡ki was raided by the Turks led by Jakub-Paà ¡a and Plaà ¡ki was abandoned. In a document of Bernardin Frankopan from 1500 Plaà ¡ki is described as defense fort against the Turks. Another document from 1550 confirms Plaà ¡ki's status as defense fort and also mentions it as one of four centres in the Military Frontier of the Habsburg Empire.
By decision of the Military Council in Graz, Serbs were allowed to resettle the area. The Serbs came in three waves: 1609, 1639 and 1666. Together with Tounj, Plaà ¡ki was centre of a military company that was part of Ogulin's regiment. The Eparchy of Upper Karlovac of the Serbian Orthodox Church was founded in 1711 and had its first seat in Gomirje monastery and from 1721 to 1941 the seat was in Plaà ¡ki. The Orthodox cathedral was built from 1756 to 1763.
After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 Plaà ¡ki was initially occupied by the Royal Italian Army, who threw children confections and adults cigars upon arrival. According to eyewitness Simo à  umonja, 2000 Italians were stationed in Plaà ¡ki.
On 16 April 1941, Ustaà ¡a ordered the Croat corporal Mirko à ½epalo of the Plaà ¡ki gendarmerie, which at the time consisted of 5 Serbs and himself, to disarm his colleagues and fill their positions with Croats loyal to the NDH. à ½epalo was reluctant, but the next day he told his colleagues, "Gentlemen, what must be, must be" (), upon which they turned in their arms and returned to their homes.
April and the first half of May that year were relatively peaceful. About 150 Serbian villagers from Plaà ¡ki and its environs surrendered their weapons to the local gendarmerie during this time. There were no mass imprisonments here yet, but in and around Plaà ¡ki, 12 economically and politically prominent people were placed under house arrest.
On 28 May in the afternoon, the first mass arrests were made by the Ustaà ¡e in Plaà ¡ki, including of the priest, the episcopal vicar, the innkeeper, the chief of the railway station Plaà ¡ki, the baker Pero Klipa from Plaà ¡ki, a merchant from Plaà ¡ki and a teacher from LiÃÂka Jesenica. Initially, they were held in the jail in Plaà ¡ki, then transferred to the Ogulin castle. There, they were held for about 20 days, forced to sing "Sprem'te se, sprem'te ÃÂetnici" (a Chetnik anthem) while sweeping the streets by their captors. Around 6 June, late in the evening, they were led out of the Ogulin tower into its courtyard and lined up in a zig-zagging column. They were all forced to sign a document with "I the undersigned with my own hand sign that in the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia I acted against the interests of the Croat nation, the Ustaà ¡a movement and the Poglavnik" (). The next day, they were transported by train to the Danica concentration camp. Pero Klipa survived thnks to his Italian father in law, who in while Plaà ¡ki assisted the Italians there in writing a letter requesting his release, which came on 6 November.
Beginning in the first days of June and throughout the month, the Serbian Orthodox priests, monks and members of the ecclesiastical court of Plaà ¡ki were arrested for questioning at Ogulin, starting with Milan DokmanoviÃÂ. A total of 19 Orthodox priests were arrested. Only 1 escaped, being on an official trip at the time. Also in early June, à ¾upan Jurica Markoviàconfiscated the furniture from the episcopal house in Plaà ¡ki. In early July, the bishop in Plaà ¡ki, the prota and ÃÂinovnik of the ecclesiastical court in Plaà ¡ki and the catechist in Plaà ¡ki had not yet been sent away. According to a 15 July document from the kotarski naÃÂelnik of Ogulin, all Orthodox priests from the territory of the kotar of Ogulin were sent to concentration camps, with the exception of the bishop in Plaà ¡ki, who was too old.
Trains carrying concentration camp inmates from Ogulin to Gospiàover the course of 50 days about twice a day and perhaps more by night, each train with about twenty wagons full of inmates. One of the inmates threw a piece of shoe with a letter tied to it out of the wagon at Plaà ¡ki, which a child, Simo à  umonja, then carried to the post office. The letter explained that he was travelling from Danica to GospiÃÂ. These trains stopped passing through in August.
A 2 July was issued order for all Velike à ¾upe, including that of Modruà ¡ (with seat in Ogulin), to make room for 2500 Slovenes each, who were to occupy the homes of 2500 Serbs, to be deported to the GMS, prioritising businessmen and merchants. Plaà ¡ki was to accommodate 800 Slovenes. As of mid-July, there were not enough empty Serb homes to accommodate the exchange.
On 30 July, many Serb villagers of Plaà ¡ki were arrested at the market in Ogulin, having come there to sell. Beginning with the next market on 6 August, the Serbs stopped coming out of fear that it would happen a third time.
At 2:30 on 20 June 1942, Plaà ¡ki was attacked from all sides with rifle and machine gun fire by the Partisans. The attack lasted until 3:30, but was repelled without Axis losses and with unknown Partisan losses. The attack was a diversion for an operation that removed of track, blocking railway traffic between Plaà ¡ki and Vojnovac, but not for long.
On 4 July, Partisans destroyed of track between Blato and LiÃÂka Jesenica. Italian soldiers arrived from Plaà ¡ki on an armoured train and the Partisans retreated.
Before the Croatian War of Independence, Plaà ¡ki was a municipality with a majority of Serb population. In the census of 2001, the town of Plaà ¡ki had 1,468 with total municipality population of 2,292, of which 48.4% were Croats, and 46.1% Serbs. Much of the Croat population is made up of those forced to leave Bosnia replacing Serbs who, in 1995, fled during Operation Storm. The Serbs constituted 46% and Croats constituted 51% of the population in the 2011 census.
On 1 January 1894, Vajin Vrh and Trojvrh, until then part of Plaà ¡ki obÃÂina, were annexed by Josipdol obÃÂina.
In 1913, there were 8 gendarmeries in Delnice kotar: Ogulin, Dreà ¾nica, Generalski Stol, Jasenak, Saborsko, Josipdol, Modruà ¡ and Plaà ¡ki.