Dubrovnik
Quick facts
- What it is
- City
- Country
- Croatia
- Area
- 143 km² (55 sq mi)
- Population
- 41,562 (2021)
Facts from Wikipedia’s “Dubrovnik” page (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Dubrovnik is a city in Croatia on the Dalmatian coast. More than 500 years ago it was called “Ragusa”. The Italian name of the city is still “Ragusa”. This sometimes leads to confusion because there is also a city named Ragusa on Sicily. It is on the Adriatic Sea. About 50,000 people lived there in 2001. Because of its age and unique buildings, the old city of Dubrovnik has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
History
The old city of Ragusa was started by Greeks who left Illirya after their home was invaded in the sixth century. They had been part of the Holy Roman Empire. Ragusa in Dalmatia grew to be an important country on the sea, called the Republic of Ragusa. This republic lasted until Napoleonic times.
Ragusa was once the only city in Dalmatia with Roman influence not controlled by the Republic of Venice. After the Middle Ages more and more Croats and Serbs from inland areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina moved to the area. They had started the neighbouring town of Dubrovnik, which eventually joined Ragusa. The original population (the Dalmatian Italians) was reduced to the few people of the ruling class: in the 19th century nearly all the people living in Ragusa were Croats and Serbs. Ragusa officially changed its name to “Dubrovnik” (a Croatian name) after 1918, when the city became part of the newly created country of Yugoslavia.
Today Dubrovnik is one of the main tourist sites in Croatia. Dubrovnik is famous for its Old Town - this is an ancient fortress with large stone walls, which helped Dubrovnik keep its freedom for many centuries. There was a major earthquake in 1667 that destroyed many buildings, but the people living there were able to rebuild the town.
Dubrovnik has been used as a filming location for Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, where it was used as the city Canto Bight, on the planet Cantonica.
Written for younger readers
Dubrovnik, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: World Heritage Sites
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic sea coast. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in south-eastern Europe although the city has a population of only 42,000. The city is admired for its intact old buildings and wall which surrounds the city although it was heavily bombarded by Serbian and Montenegrin forces during the Croatian War in 1991.
The city has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. Dubrovnik and the surrounding area is cut off from the rest of Croatia by a small strip of Bosnian land which gives Bosnia Herzegovina its only access to the sea. Most tourists travel to Dubrovnik by air or on tours from elsewhere in Croatia, Bosnia or Montenegro.
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Dubrovnik” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.
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