Zadar - City of Croatia

Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the fifth largest Croatian city.

It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Zadar faces the islands of Ugljan and Pašman, from which it is separated by the narrow Zadar Strait.
The promontory on which the old city stands used to be separated from the mainland by a deep moat which has since become a landfill. The harbor, to the north-east of the town, is safe and spacious. Zadar is the seat of a Catholic archbishop.

The entire district of present day Zadar has been populated since prehistoric times. The earliest evidence of human life comes from the Late Stone Age, while numerous settlements have been dated as early as the Neolithic. Before the Illyrians, the area was inhabited by an ancient Mediterranean people of a pre-Indo-European culture. Zadar was Liburnian settlement, outlined materially in the 9th century BC, built on 3 small islets where the old city stands and tied to the mainland by the overflown narrow isthmus, which created a natural port in its northern strait

During the Migration Period and the Barbarian invasions, Zadar underwent a stagnation. In the 5th century, under the rule of Ostrogoths, Zadar became poor with many civic buildings turning into ruins. About the same time Zadar was hit by an earthquake, which destroyed entire complexes of monumental Roman architecture, whose parts will later serve as material for building houses.

During the Croatian War of Independence, Krajina rebels with the protection of the serbianized Yugoslav People's Army under Slobodan Miloševic's control, converged on the city and subjected it to artillery bombardment, in what is now known as the Battle of Dalmatia. Along with other Croatian towns in the area, Zadar was sporadically shelled for several years, which damaged buildings and homes as well as UNESCO protected sites.

Connections with Zagreb were severed for over a year, the only link between the north and south of the country was via the island of Pag.

The first university of Zadar was mentioned in writing as early as in 1396 and it was a part of a Dominican monastery. It closed in 1807.

Zadar was, along with Split and Dubrovnik, one of the centres of the development of Croatian literature.

The 15th and 16th centuries were marked by important activities of Croatians writing in the national language: Jerolim Vidolic, Petar Zoranic .

Under French rule , the first Dalmatian newspaper Kraglski Dalmatin - Il Regio Dalmata was published in Zadar. It was printed in Italian and Croatian; this last used for the first time in a newspaper. In the second half of the 19th century, Zadar was a centre of the movement for the cultural and national revivals in Dalmatia.

Today Zadar's cultural institutions include:

The Croatian Theatre House
The National Museum
The Archaeological Museum
The University of Zadar
The Maritime Museum
Permanent Exhibition of Sacral Art
Croatian Singing Musical Society Zoranic
Musical Evenings in St. Donatus
International Choirs Competition
Arsenal Zadar