Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik (formerly Ragusa) is an old city on the Adriatic Sea coast in the extreme south of Croatia, positioned at 42°39'N 18°04'E at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist resorts, a seaport and the center of the Dubrovnik–Neretva county. Its population was 43,770 in 2001 and 49,728 in 1991. in 2001 the absolute majority of its citizens declared themselves as Croats with 88.39% (2001 census). Dubrovnik is nicknamed "Pearl of the Adriatic".

The city of Dubrovnik was based on maritime trade. In the Middle Ages, as the Republic of Ragusa, it became the only eastern Adriatic city-state to rival Venice. Supported by its wealth and skilled diplomacy, the city achieved a remarkable level of development during the 15th and 16th centuries. Dubrovnik was one of the centers of the development of the Croatian language and literature, home to many notable poets, playwrights, painters, mathematicians, physicists and other scholars.

Dubrovnik was founded by joining two small towns: Laus, a town on a small island off the southern Dalmatian coast, which provided shelter for the Italic refugees from the nearby city of today's Cavtat; and Dubrava, a settlement of Slavic immigrants at the foot of the forested Srd hill.

The strip of wetland between the two parts of the town, was reclaimed in the 12th century, unifying the city around the newly-made plaza (today Placa or Stradun). The plaza was paved in 1468 and reconstructed after the earthquake of 1667. The city was fortified and two harbours were built on each side of the isthmus.

From its establishment in the 7th century, the town was under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. After the Crusades, Ragusa/Dubrovnik came under the sovereignty of Venice (1205–1358), and by the Peace Treaty of Zadar in 1358 it became part of the Hungarian–Croatian Kingdom.

Between the 14th century and 1808 Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state named Respublica Ragusina, the Republic of Ragusa also known as the Republic of Dubrovnik. The Republic of Ragusa reached its peak in the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Dubrovnik thalassocracy rivalled the Republic of Venice and other Italian maritime republics. During this time in Dubrovnik worked one of the most famous cannon and bell founder of this time: Ivan Rabljanin (Magister Johannes Baptista Arbensis de la Tolle).

At the very beginning of the World War II, Dubrovnik was first part of the Independent State of Croatia. From April 1941 until September 1943, Dubrovnik was occupied by the Italian army and after that by the Germans. In October 1944, the Partisans liberated Dubrovnik from the Germans and it became part of the second Yugoslavia in 1945.

Despite the demilitarization of the old town by the Yugoslav People's Army in the 1970s in an attempt to prevent it from becoming a casualty of war, following Croatia's independence in 1991, the same army attacked and surrounded the city on October 1, 1991 and the siege lasted until May 1992. The heaviest artillery attack happened on December 6 with 19 people killed and 60 wounded. Total casualty in the conflict on this area according to the Croatian Red Cross were 114 killed civilians, among them the celebrated poet Milan Milisic (born 1941).

Following the end of the war, a major rebuilding project led by the Croatian authorities and UNESCO began. They rebuilt the city in the ancient style to keep its sense of beauty and history. As well as rebuilding damaged buildings, surviving structures were strengthened against earthquakes. As of 2005, most damaged buildings in the city have been repaired.