About Zadar

Zadar is a historic port city on Croatia's northern Dalmatian coast, built on a peninsula that has been continuously inhabited for around 3,000 years. Long a Roman colony and later a contested prize between Venice, Byzantium and Hungary, the city today pairs a dense old town of Roman and medieval remains with a modern reputation built on two unusual pieces of public art overlooking the sea.

History

Zadar was established as the Roman colony of Iader sometime in the 1st century BC, most likely under Julius Caesar or during the early reign of Augustus, and it grew into an important administrative and trading centre on the Dalmatian coast. Its old town still preserves a Roman street grid and the remains of a large forum, laid out by the sea and still legible in the layout of today's streets.

Control of the city changed hands repeatedly over the centuries between Byzantium, Croatian and Hungarian rulers, and the Republic of Venice, which held Zadar for close to four centuries until Venice's fall in 1797. The 20th century brought heavier destruction: during the Second World War, Allied bombing raids devastated much of the historic centre, destroying an estimated 60 to 80 percent of the old town's buildings, a blow from which the city took decades to recover.

Landmarks: St Anastasia's and St Donatus

Zadar's skyline is anchored by the Romanesque Cathedral of St Anastasia, whose bell tower rises over the old town, and by the circular 9th-century church of St Donatus, built directly on top of the Roman forum using masonry recycled from the ancient ruins beneath it. Together the two buildings trace the city's transition from Roman colony to medieval bishopric within a single city block.

Modern Landmarks and Recognition

Along the waterfront, the Sea Organ, designed by architect Nikola Bašić and completed in 2005, channels waves through underwater pipes to produce a constantly shifting, semi-random musical tone. Beside it stands Bašić's companion piece, the Greeting to the Sun, a circle of solar panels set into the pavement that absorbs sunlight by day and powers a choreographed light display after dark, synchronised with the nearby organ. The two installations helped Zadar's waterfront gain international attention, and in 2016 the city was voted the best European destination of the year by the European Best Destinations organisation.

Zadar's old town sits at the tip of a peninsula ringed by water on three sides, and the surrounding coastline, with the Kornati archipelago and the islands of Ugljan and Pašman within easy reach, has made the city a natural sailing base — which is why so many visitors explore this coast by private gulet charter, using Zadar's harbour as a starting point for the islands beyond.