The Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography is the Croatian central lexicographic institution. It was established on October 5, 1950 following the incentive of the writer and erudite Miroslav Krleža. Since then, all through to the present, the editions of the Institute of Lexicography are an important contribution to the maintenance and development of the Croatian cultural standard. Encyclopaedias, atlases, dictionaries, lexicons and bibliographies of the Institute of Lexicography are traditionally reliable and explain in a distinguishing manner facts relating to the Croatian heritage and social reality.

The basic activity of the Institute is acquisition, processing and verifying data that, accompanied by fundamental research (with a view to developing scientific-vocational basis) are used as data base for the creation of various editions. Additional activities of the Institute refer to the scientific improvement in cooperation with university institutions, exchange of lexicographically verified data with related foreign institutions and establishment of common lexicographic-encyclopaedic standards.
In the course of its sixty-year-long activity, the Institute of Lexicography published more than 250 different encyclopaedias, dictionaries, lexicons and other publications. The fundamental editions of the Institute of Lexicography are the multivolume Croatian Encyclopaedia and the Croatian Biographical Lexicon. Recently, the emphasis is directed at the one-volume editions that endeavour to respond to current cultural and social requirements.