Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a city in Croatia.
History
Dubrovnik was settled by refugees from Epidaurum in the 7th century and developed as a city state under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. The names Dubrovnik and Ragusa were used interchangeably for centuries. The latter was used for the official name (Republic of Ragusa) until 1808.
The city was a merchant republic and secured free trade rights from their neighbors: Serbia in 1186; the banate of Bosnia in 1189; and the Byzantines themselves in 1191. They submitted to Venetian suzerainty in 1205, then were conquered by Louis I in 1358, then became an Ottoman tributary in 1458. The city remained generally autonomous and actually benefited from preferential trade access to the rest of the Ottoman Empire. In the 17th century, as the Ottomans were expelled from nearby Hungary and Croatia, they offered suzerainty to the Habsburgs. Instead, most of their territory was ceded to Venice. Furthermore, to forestall outright conquest by the Venetian, they ceded a small strip of the coast to the Ottomans.
Following a brief Napoleonic conquest, Dubrovnik was ceded to the Austrian Empire.