Sibenik tourist information

Sibenik was mentioned for the first time under its present name in 1066 in a Charter of the Croatian King Petar Kresimir IV. Unlike other Dalmatian towns that were founded by the Illyrians, Greeks, and Romans, it is the oldest native Croatian town on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. Sibenik was given the status of a town and its own diocese in 1298. Excavations of the castle of Saint Ana have since proven that the place was inhabited long before the actual arrival of the Croats.

The city, like the rest of Dalmatia, resisted the Venetians up to 1412. The Ottoman Empire started to threaten Sibenik at the end of the 15th century, but they never succeed in conquering it. In the 16th century, the fortress of St. Nicholas was built and, by the 17th century, its fortifications were improved again by the fortresses of St. John (Tanaja) and Subicevac (Barone).

The fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797 brought Sibenik under the authority of the Habsburg Monarchy. After World War I it was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, while during World War II it was occupied by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. After WWII it was part of the SFR Yugoslavia until finally becoming part of the Republic of Croatia in 1990.