Croatia (729 km2) Zala was an administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary, bordered by the river Drave to the south.

In 1850, shortly after the 1848 revolutions, the mostly Croatian-speaking area between the Mur and Drava rivers – the Međimurje region (Hungarian: Muraköz; German: Murinsel, lit.

'Mur island') – was transferred to the Habsburg Kingdom of Croatia;[1] it was returned to Zala in 1860 and remained until 1918.

The Yugoslavian part was occupied and annexed again by Hungary between 1941 and 1945 during World War II.

In 1950, as part of the Communist reforms of local government, the county's borders were re-drawn again.