Kotor - Kotorski Zaliv

Kotor is one of the best preserved medieval cities on the Adriatic and double UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO World Heritage is the natural bay with the cultural-historical region "Bay of Kotor" and the city of Kotor with the Venetian defensive works from the 16th and 17th centuries - the Stato da Terra and West Stato da Mar.

The city at the foot of the 1749m high  Stirovnik mountain houses numerous sights, such as the Romanesque St. Tryphon Cathedral from the 12th Jhd. It is the largest Romanesque church still preserved in the eastern Adriatic. Equally imposing are the old town and the defensive walls and fortifications, which extend over 4.5 km directly above the city and on the river Scurda.

The natural harbor offered favorable protection, which already attracted the Illyrians in the 3rd century BC, who were later followed by Greeks and Romans. In 168 BC Kotor was mentioned as Ascrivium; at that time the settlement by the Romans began. In the imperial period, the city initially belonged to the province of Dalmatia. Emperor Diocletian assigned Kotor to the newly formed province of Praevalitana at the end of the 3rd century.

In response to the migration of peoples, Kotor was strongly fortified in Byzantine times. First, Emperor Justinian had a fortress built at Ascrivium in 535. In 840, however, the city was sacked by a Saracen fleet. In 1242, the city was destroyed again, this time in the Mongol storm.

In the 14th century, Kotor had played such a major role in trade in the Adriatic Sea that it came into competition with Venice and the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik). When after Tsar Dušan's death (1355) the Serbian Empire, to which Kotor belonged for almost 200 years, disintegrated, the Venetians attacked, conquered and destroyed the city in 1369. After brief Hungarian and Bosnian affiliation, Kotor became an independent republic in 1391. During this period it often had to fight out disputes with the Balšići. In 1420 the city placed itself under Venetian protection and lost more and more independence. Since the 16th century, the Provveditore for Venetian Albania had his seat in Kotor. In 1564 many buildings in Kotor were damaged by a severe earthquake. In the 1667 quake, more than half of all buildings were destroyed or damaged.
After the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, the city was granted to Austria in the Peace of Campo Formio. From 1805 to 1814 the area was occupied by France. From 1815 Kotor was a county seat in the Austrian crown land of Dalmatia. The Austrians developed the port into a base for the imperial and royal navy. Kriegsmarine and stationed there the IV Battalion of the Hungarian Infantry Regiment No. 33. During World War I the Austrian submarines and ships were moored in the bay. From February 1 to 3, 1918, the Cattaro Sailors' Uprising took place here by sailors of the fleet that was mostly condemned to inactivity. The sailors' revolt was one of the first signs of the collapse of the Central Powers. It was also a politically highly explosive precedent, reflecting the revolutionary mood after the victory of the Bolsheviks in Western Europe as well. The uprising involved 6000 sailors on 40 ships of the Austro-Hungarian navy; they began raising red flags on February 1. The sailors disarmed the officers and formed sailor councils. After the violent suppression, the ringleaders of the uprising were summarily shot near Cattaro on February 11, 1918. Today, a memorial plaque in the fortress refers to Frantisek Ras (Franz Rasch), Jeroko Sizgoric, Mate Brnicevic and Anton Grubar. In German-language literature, the uprising is known especially through the drama The Sailors of Cattaro by playwright Friedrich Wolf.

In1918, Kotor became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During World War II, the city and its war port were occupied by Italian troops in the course of the Balkan campaign in early April 1941 and annexed to the Kingdom of Italy with the surrounding countryside as the province of Cattaro in June 1941. After the Italian armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the 118th Jäger Division of the Wehrmacht occupied Kotor. Kotor was also an important war port during the Yugoslav period, especially in socialist Yugoslavia. With the dissolution of the military after the declaration of independence of Montenegro in 2006, all military facilities were abandoned.