Dubrovnik 360° Panorama Video Croatia

Dubrovnik (historically Latin: Ragusa) is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Its total population is 42,615 (census 2011). In 1979, the city of Dubrovnik joined the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
The prosperity of the city was historically based on maritime trade; as the capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, it achieved a high level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries, as it became notable for its wealth and skilled diplomacy.
In 1991, after the break-up of Yugoslavia, Dubrovnik was besieged by Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) for seven months and suffered significant damage from shelling. After repair and restoration works in the 1990s and early 2000s, Dubrovnik re-emerged as one of the top tourist destinations in the Mediterranean.Thenames Dubrovnik and Ragusa co-existed for several centuries. Ragusa, recorded in various forms since at least the 10th century, remained the official name of the Republic of Ragusa until 1808, and of the city within the Kingdom of Dalmatia until 1918, while Dubrovnik, first recorded in the late 12th century, was in widespread use by the late 16th or early 17th century.
The name Dubrovnik of the Adriatic city is first recorded in the Charter of Ban Kulin (1189). It is mostly explained as "dubron", a Celticname for water (Gaulish dubron, Irish dobar, Welsh dubr/dwfr, Cornish dofer), akin to the toponyms Douvres, Dover, and Tauber.
The historical name Ragusa is recorded in the Greek form Ῥαούσιν (Rhaousin, Latinized Ragusium) in the 10th century. It was recorded in various forms in the medieval period,Rausia, Lavusa, Labusa, Raugia, Rachusa.
The classical explanation of the name is due to Constantine Porphyrogenitus's De Administrando Imperio (10th century). According to this account, Ragusa (Ῥαούσιν) is the foundation of the refugees fromEpidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia), a Greek city situated some 15 km (9 mi) to the south of Ragusa, when that city was destroyed in the Slavic incursions of the 7th century. The name is explained as a corruption of Lausa, the name of the rocky island on which the city was built (connected by Constantine to Greek λᾶας "rock, stone").
Origins
According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus'sDe Administrando Imperio (c. 950), Ragusa was founded in the 7th century, named for a "rocky island" called Lausa, by refugees from Epidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia), a Greek city situated some 15 km to the south, when that city was destroyed in the Slavic incursions.
Excavations in 2007 revealed a Byzantinebasilica from the 8th century and parts of the city walls. The size of the old basilica clearly indicates that there was quite a large settlement at the time. There is also evidence for the presence of a settlement in the pre-Christian era.[21]
Antun Ničetić, in his 1996 book Povijest dubrovačke luke ("History of the Port of Dubrovnik"), expounds the theory that Dubrovnik was established by Greek sailors, as a station halfway between the two Greek settlements of Budvaand Korčula, 95 nautical miles (176 km; 109 mi) apart from each other.

Republic of Ragusa
After the fall of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, the town came under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. Dubrovnik in those medieval centuries had a Roman population. After the Crusades, Dubrovnik came under the sovereignty of Venice (1205–1358), which would give its institutions to the Dalmatian city. After a fire destroyed almost the whole city in the night of August 16, 1296, a new urban plan was developed. By the Peace Treaty of Zadar in 1358, Dubrovnik achieved relative independence as a vassal-state of the Kingdom of Hungary.
Between the 14th century and 1808, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state, although it was a vassal from 1382 to 1804 of the Ottoman Empire and paid an annual tribute to its sultan. The Republic reached its peak in the 15th and 16th centuries, when its thalassocracy rivalled that of the Republic of Venice and other Italian maritime republics.
For centuries, Dubrovnik was an ally of Ancona, the other Adriatic maritime Republic rival of Venice, which was the Ottoman Empire's chief rival for control of the Adriatic. This alliance enabled the two towns set on opposite sides of the Adriatic to resist attempts by the Venetians to make the Adriatic a "Venetian Bay", also controlling directly or indirectly all the Adriatic ports. Ancona and Dubrovnik developed an alternative trade route to the Venetian (Venice-Austria-Germany): starting in Dubrovnik it went on to Ancona, through Florence and ended in Flanders. The Republic of Ragusa received its own Statutes as early as 1272, statutes which, among other things, codified Roman practice and local customs.