Makarska

Sister cities

• Maribor
• Travnik

History

Near present-day Makarska, there was a settlement as early as the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. It is thought that it was a point used by the Cretans on their way up to the Adriatic (the so-called Amber Road). However it was only one of the ports with links with the wider Mediterranean, as shown by a copper tablet with Cretan and Egyptian systems of measurement. A similar tablet was found in the Egyptian pyramids. In the Illyrian era this region was part of the broader alliance of tribes, led by the Ardaeans, founded in the third century BC in the Cetina area (Omiš) down to the River Vjosë in present-day Albania. Although the Romans became rulers of the Adriatic by defeating the Ardiaei in 228 BC, it took them two centuries to confirm their rule. The Romans sent their veteran soldiers to settle in Makarska. After the division of the Empire in 395 AD, this part of the Adriatic became part of the Eastern Roman Empire and many people fled to Muccurum from the new wave of invaders. The town appears in the Tabula Peutingeriana as the port of Inaronia, but is mentioned as Muccurum, a larger settlement that grew up in the most inaccessible part of Biokovo mountain, probably at the very edge of the Roman civilisation. It appears as Macrum on the acts of the Salonan Synod of 4 May 533 AD held in Salona (533), After the war, during the socialist Yugoslavia, Makarska experienced a period of growth, and the population tripled. All the natural advantages of the region were used to create in Makarska one of the best known tourist areas on the Croatian Adriatic. Following Croatian independence in 1991, Makarska had a sustained growth in first few years with many of the refugees (mostly from Herzegovina) being accommodated in tourist accommodation. In the late 1990s tourism was…

Geography

Makarska is located in central Dalmatia, at the junction of Biokovo and the Adriatic Sea. The town is sharply separated from the interior by the mountain Biokovo (the highest peak of St. George, 1762 m), and it is connected with the central Dalmatian islands of Brač and Hvar by the Adriatic Sea, which modelled some of the most beautiful Croatian beaches in the Makarska Riviera. The town itself is located in a natural harbour between two peninsulas, Osejava and Sv. Petra. The flysch zone between the mountain and the sea is only a few kilometres wide, so that the further expansion of the city goes to the east and west, i.e. to the neighbouring settlements of Tučepi and Krvavica.