Rijeka

Historically, Rijeka was also called Tharsatica, Vitopolis (lit. 'City of [Saint] Vitus'), or Flumen (lit. 'River') in Latin. The city is called Rijeka in Croatian, Reka in Slovene, and Reka or Rika in the local dialects of the Chakavian language. It is called Fiume ([ˈfjuːme]) in Italian. All these names mean "river" in their respective languages.^[7][8] Meanwhile, while in German the city has been called Sankt Veit am Flaum—St-Vitus-on-the-Flaum—or Pflaum ([pflaʊm]).

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Saint Vitus

Saint Vitus

Vitus, whose name is sometimes rendered Guy or Guido, was a Christian martyr from Sicily. His surviving hagiography is pure legend. The dates of his actual life are unknown. He has for long been tied to the Sicilian martyrs Modestus and Crescentia but in the earliest sources it is clear that these were originally different traditions that later became combined. The figures of Modestus and Crescentia are probably fictitious.

Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage. For most of the time it was used, it would be considered a "dead language" in the modern linguistic definition; that is, it lacked native speakers, despite being used extensively and actively.

Croatian language

Croatian language

Croatian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language used by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina, and other neighboring countries. It is the official and literary standard of Croatia and one of the official languages of the European Union. Croatian is also one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a recognized minority language in Serbia and neighboring countries.

Slovene language

Slovene language

Slovene, or alternatively Slovenian, is a South Slavic language, a sub-branch that is part of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken by about 2.5 million speakers worldwide, mainly ethnic Slovenes, the majority of whom live in Slovenia, where it is the sole official language. As Slovenia is part of the European Union, Slovene is also one of its 24 official and working languages.

Chakavian

Chakavian

Chakavian or Čakavian is a South Slavic supradialect or language spoken by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmatia, Istria, Croatian Littoral and parts of coastal and southern Central Croatia, as well as by the Burgenland Croatian in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia and a few municipalities in southern Slovenia.

Italian language

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, and Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia and in some areas of Slovenian Istria.

German language

German language

German, or more precisely High German, is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Western Europe and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary (Sopron).

Rijeka Bay

Rijeka is located in western Croatia, 131 kilometres (81 miles) south-west of the capital, Zagreb, on the coast of Kvarner Gulf, in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. Geographically, Rijeka is roughly equidistant from Milan (485 km [301 mi]), Budapest (502 km [312 mi]), Munich (516 km [321 mi]), Vienna (516 km [321 mi]) and Belgrade (550 km [340 mi]). Other major regional centers such as Trieste (76 km [47 mi]), Venice (240 km [150 mi]) and Ljubljana (115 km [71 mi]) are all relatively close and easily accessible. The Bay of Rijeka, which is bordered by Vela Vrata (between Istria and the island of Cres), Srednja Vrata (between Cres and Krk Island) and Mala Vrata (between Krk and the mainland) is connected to the Kvarner Gulf and is deep enough (about fifty metres or 160 feet) to accommodate large commercial ships. The City of Rijeka lies at the mouth of the river Rječina and in the Vinodol micro-region of the Croatian coast. From three sides Rijeka is surrounded by mountains. To the west, the 1,396-metre (4,580 ft) Učka range is prominent. To the north/north-east there are the Snežnik plateau and the 1,528 m (5,013 ft) Risnjak massif with the national park. To the east/south-east there is the 1,533-metre (5,030 ft) Velika Kapela range. This type of terrain configuration prevented Rijeka from developing further inland (to the north) and the city mostly lies on a long and relatively narrow strip along the coast. Two important inland transport routes start in Rijeka. The first route runs north-east to the Pannonian Basin. This route takes advantage of Rijeka's location close to the point where the Dinaric Alps are the narrowest (about fifty kilometres or 31 miles) and easiest to traverse, making it the optimal route from the Hungarian plain to the sea. It also makes Rijeka the natural harbour for the Pannonian Basin (especially Hungary). The other route runs north-west across the Postojna Gate connecting Rijeka with Slovenia and further through the Ljubljana Gap with Austria and beyond. A third more coastal route runs east-west connecting Rijeka (and—by extension—the Adriatic coastal cities to the south) with Trieste and northern Italy.

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Croatia

Croatia

Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe. Its coast lies entirely on the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Italy to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city, Zagreb, forms one of the country's primary subdivisions, with twenty counties. The country spans 56,594 square kilometres, and has a population of nearly 3.9 million.

Kvarner Gulf

Kvarner Gulf

The Kvarner Gulf, sometimes also Kvarner Bay, is a bay in the northern Adriatic Sea, located between the Istrian peninsula and the northern Croatian Littoral mainland. The bay is a part of Croatia's internal waters.

Adriatic Sea

Adriatic Sea

The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto to the northwest and the Po Valley. The countries with coasts on the Adriatic are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Montenegro, and Slovenia.

Milan

Milan

Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has 3.26 million inhabitants. Its continuously built-up urban area is the fourth largest in the EU with 5.27 million inhabitants. According to national sources, the population within the wider Milan metropolitan area, is estimated between 8.2 million and 12.5 million making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and one of the largest in the EU.

Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population of 1,752,286 over a land area of about 525 square kilometres. Budapest, which is both a city and county, forms the centre of the Budapest metropolitan area, which has an area of 7,626 square kilometres and a population of 3,303,786; it is a primate city, constituting 33% of the population of Hungary.

Munich

Munich

Munich is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, and thus the largest which does not constitute its own state, as well as the 11th-largest city in the European Union. The city's metropolitan region is home to 6 million people. Straddling the banks of the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps, Munich is the seat of the Bavarian administrative region of Upper Bavaria, while being the most densely populated municipality in Germany with 4,500 people per km2. Munich is the second-largest city in the Bavarian dialect area, after the Austrian capital of Vienna.

Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. The population of the Belgrade metropolitan area is 1,685,563, according to the 2022 census. It is the third most populated of all cities on the Danube river.

Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center.

Istria

Istria

Istria is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner Gulf. It is shared by three countries: Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. Croatia encapsulates most of the Istrian peninsula within Istria County.

Cres

Cres

Cres is an Adriatic island in Croatia. It is one of the northern islands in the Kvarner Gulf and can be reached via ferry from Rijeka, the island Krk or from the Istrian peninsula.

Krk

Krk

Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Krk is tied with Cres as the largest Adriatic island, depending on the methodology used to measure the coastline. Krk is the most populous island in the Adriatic, with multiple towns and villages that contain a total of 19,383 (2011) inhabitants.

Risnjak

Risnjak

Risnjak is a mountain in the Risnjak National Park, in Gorski Kotar, Croatia. It belongs to the Dinaric Alps mountain range. The name of the massif probably comes from ris, the Croatian word for lynx. Another interpretation suggests that it comes from the local word risje, which is a name for a type of grass.

Ancient and Medieval times

The Roman arch (Rimski luk), the oldest architectural monument in Rijeka and an entrance to the old town

Trsat Castle lies at the exact spot of an ancient Illyrian and Roman fortress.

Though traces of Neolithic settlements can be found in the region, the earliest modern settlements on the site were Celtic Tharsatica (modern Trsat, now part of Rijeka) on the hill, and the tribe of mariners, the Liburni, in the natural harbour below. The city long retained its dual character. Rijeka was first mentioned in the 1st century AD by Pliny the Elder as Tarsatica in his Natural History (iii.140).^[9] Rijeka (Tarsatica) is again mentioned around AD 150 by the Greek geographer and astronomer Ptolemy in his Geography when describing the "Location of Illyria or Liburnia, and of Dalmatia" (Fifth Map of Europe).^[10] In the time of Augustus, the Romans rebuilt Tarsatica as a municipium Flumen (MacMullen 2000), situated on the right bank of the small river Rječina (whose name means "the big river"). It became a city within the Roman Province of Dalmatia until the 6th century. In this period the city is part of the Liburnia limes (system of walls and fortifications against raiding Barbarians). Remains of these walls are still visible in some places today.

The Baroque city clock tower above the arched gateway linking the Korzo to the inner city, designed by Filbert Bazarig in 1876

Main street Korzo

After the 4th century Rijeka was rededicated to St. Vitus, the city's patron saint, as Terra Fluminis sancti Sancti Viti or in German Sankt Veit am Pflaum. From the 5th century onwards, the town was ruled successively by the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, and the Avars. The city was burned down in 452 by the troops of Attila the Hun as part of their Aquileia campaign.^[11] Croats settled the city starting in the 7th century giving it the Croatian name, Rika svetoga Vida ("the river of Saint Vitus"). At the time, Rijeka was a feudal stronghold surrounded by a wall. At the center of the city, its highest point, was a fortress.

In 799 Rijeka was attacked by the Frankish troops of Charlemagne. Their Siege of Trsat was at first repulsed, during which the Frankish commander Duke Eric of Friuli was killed. However, the Frankish forces finally occupied and devastated the castle, while the Duchy of Croatia passed under the overlordship of the Carolingian Empire. From about 925, the town was part of the Kingdom of Croatia, from 1102 in personal union with Hungary. Trsat Castle and the town was rebuilt under the rule of the House of Frankopan. In 1288 the Rijeka citizens signed the Law codex of Vinodol, one of the oldest codes of law in Europe.

In the period from about 1300 to 1466 Rijeka was ruled by a number of noble families, the most prominent of which was the German Walsee family. Rijeka even rivalled Venice when in it was sold by Rambert II Walsee to the Habsburg emperor Frederick III, Archduke of Austria in 1466. It would remain under Austrian Habsburg rule for over 450 years (except for a brief period of French rule between 1809 and 1813) until the end of World War I in 1918 when it was occupied by Croatian and subsequently by Italian irregulars.^[11]

Under Habsburg rule

Rijeka and Trsat

River Rječina in city center

Austrian presence on the Adriatic Sea was seen as a threat by the Republic of Venice and during the War of the League of Cambrai the Venetians raided and devastated the city with great loss of life in 1508 and again in 1509. The city did however recover and remain under Austrian rule. For its fierce resistance to the Venetians it will receive the title of the "most loyal city" ("fidelissimum oppidium") as well as commercial privileges from the Austrian emperor Maximilian I in 1515.^[12] While Ottoman forces attacked the town several times, they never occupied it. From the 16th century onwards, Rijeka's present Renaissance and Baroque style started to take shape. Emperor Charles VI declared the Port of Rijeka a free port (together with the Port of Trieste) in 1719 and had the trade route to Vienna expanded in 1725.

On November 28, 1750 Rijeka was hit by a large earthquake. The devastation was so widespread that the city had to be almost completely rebuilt. In 1753, the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa approved the funding for rebuilding Rijeka as a "new city" ("Civitas nova"). The rebuilt Rijeka was significantly different - it was transformed from a small medieval walled town into a larger commercial and maritime city centered around its port.^[13]

By order of Maria Theresa in 1779, the city was annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary and governed as corpus separatum directly from Budapest by an appointed governor, as Hungary's only international port. From 1804, Rijeka was part of the Austrian Empire (Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia after the Compromise of 1867), in the Croatia-Slavonia province.^[14]

During the Napoleonic Wars, Rijeka was briefly captured by the French Empire and included in the Illyrian Provinces. During the French rule, between 1809 and 1813, the critically important Louisiana road was completed (named after Napoleon's wife Marie Louise). The road was the shortest route from Rijeka to the interior (Karlovac) and gave a strong impulse to the development of Rijeka's port. In 1813 the French rule came to an end when Rijeka was first bombarded by the Royal Navy and later re-captured by the Austrians under the command of the Irish general Laval Nugent von Westmeath.^[15] The British bombardment has an interesting side story. The city was apparently saved from annihilation by a young lady named Karolina Belinić who - amid the chaos and destruction of the bombardment - went to the English fleet commander and convinced him that further bombardment of the city was unnecessary (the small French garrison was quickly defeated and left the city). The legend of Karolina is warmly remembered by the population even today. She became a folk hero Karolina Riječka (Caroline of Rijeka) and has been celebrated in plays, movies and even in a rock opera.^[16]

In the early 19th century, the most prominent economical and cultural leader of the city was Andrija Ljudevit Adamić. Fiume also had a significant naval base, and in the mid-19th century it became the site of the Austro-Hungarian Naval Academy (K.u.K. Marine-Akademie), where the Austro-Hungarian Navy trained its officers.

Hungarian Crown

During the Hungarian revolution of 1848, when Hungary tried to gain independence from Austria, Rijeka was captured by the Croatian troops (loyal to Austria) commanded by Ban Josip Jelačić. The city was then annexed directly to Croatia, although it did keep a degree of autonomy.^[17]

Giovanni de Ciotta (mayor from 1872 to 1896) proved to be an authoritative local political leader. Under his leadership, an impressive phase of expansion of the city started, marked by major port development, fuelled by the general expansion of international trade and the city's connection (1873) to the Austro-Hungarian railway network. Modern industrial and commercial enterprises such as the Royal Hungarian Sea Navigation Company "Adria", a rival shipping company the Ungaro-Croata (established in 1891) and the Smith and Meynier paper mill (which operated the first steam engine in south-east Europe), situated in the Rječina canyon, producing cigarette paper sold around the world.

The second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (up to World War I) was a period of great prosperity, rapid economic growth and technological dynamism for Rijeka. Many authors and witnesses describe Rijeka of this time as a rich, tolerant, well-to-do town which offered a good standard of living, with endless possibilities for making one's fortune. The Pontifical Delegate Celso Costantini noted in his diary "the religious indifference and apathy of the town". The further industrial development of the city included the first industrial scale oil refinery in Europe in 1882^[18] and the first torpedo factory in the world in 1866, after Robert Whitehead, manager of the "Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano" (an Austrian engineering company engaged in providing engines for the Austro-Hungarian Navy), designed and successfully tested the world's first torpedo. In addition to the Whitehead torpedo factory, which opened in 1874, the oil refinery (1882) and the paper mill, many other industrial and commercial enterprises were established or expanded in these years. These include a rice husking and starch factory (one of the largest in the world), a wood and furniture company, a wheat elevator and mill, the Ganz-Danubius shipbuilding industries, a cocoa and chocolate factory, a brick factory, a tobacco factory (the largest in the Monarchy), a cognac distillery, a pasta factory, the Ossoinack barrel and chest factory, a large tannery, five foundries and many others.^[19] At the beginning of the 20th century more than half of the industrial capacity in Croatia (which was at that time mostly agrarian) was located in Rijeka.^[20]

Rijeka's Austro-Hungarian Marine Academy became a pioneering centre for high-speed photography. The Austrian physicist Peter Salcher working in the Academy took the first photograph of a bullet flying at supersonic speed in 1886, devising a technique that was later used by Ernst Mach in his studies of supersonic motion.^[21]

Casa Veneziana in Rijeka

Leaning Tower

Saint Vitus cathedral

Rijeka's port underwent tremendous development fuelled by generous Hungarian investments, becoming the main maritime outlet for Hungary and the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By 1913–14, the port of Fiume became the tenth-busiest port in Europe.^[22] The population grew rapidly from only 21,000 in 1880 to 50,000 in 1910. Major civic buildings constructed at this time include the Governor's Palace, designed by the Hungarian architect Alajos Hauszmann. There was an ongoing competition between Rijeka and Trieste, the main maritime outlet for Austria—reflecting the rivalry between the two components of the Dual Monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian Navy sought to keep the balance by ordering new warships from the shipyards of both cities.

During this period the city had an Italian majority. In fact, according to the census of 1880, in Rijeka there were 9,076 Italians, 7,991 Croats, 895 Germans and 383 Hungarians.^[23] Some historians claim that the city had a Slavic majority at the beginning of the 19th century, because the 1851 census reported a Croatian majority. However, this census is considered not very reliable, especially by Italian historians.^[24] At the last Austro-Hungarian census in 1910, the corpus separatum had a population of 49,806 people and was composed of the following linguistic communities:^[25]

By religion, the census of 1910 indicates that - from the total of 49,806 inhabitants - there were 45,130 Catholics, 1,696 Jewish, 1,123 Calvinist, 995 Orthodox and 311 Lutheran. The Jewish population expanded rapidly, particularly in the 1870s-1880s, and built a large synagogue in 1907 (which would be destroyed in 1944, during the German occupation, concurrent with the murder of most of the city's Jewish residents). At the eve of WWI, there were 165 inns, 10 hotels with restaurants, 17 cafés, 17 jewellers, 37 barbers and 265 tailor shops in Rijeka.^[26]

World War I

Torpedo production in Rijeka, c. 1914

World War I put an end to Rijeka's "golden era" of peace, stability and rapid economic growth. The city would never quite recover to the same level of prosperity. Initially there was a semblance of normalcy (the city was far from the frontlines), however - a growing part of the male population started to be mobilized by the army and the navy. The city's war-related industries continued to work full steam and contributed significantly to the Austro-Hungarian war effort, especially to the navy. The shipyard Ganz-Danubius produced a number of warships and submarines like the U-27-class submarines, the Novara-class cruisers, the large battleship SMS Szent István and others. In total, between the early 1900s and 1918 the city's shipyards produced 1 battleship, 2 cruisers, 20 destroyers, 32 torpedo boats and 15 submarines for the navy.^[27] Rijeka was also the main center for the production of torpedoes. However, a lot changed with the war becoming a protracted conflict and especially with the Italian declaration of war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915. This opened a frontline only 90 km from the city and caused a pervasive sense of anxiety among the large Italian population. Several hundred Italians, considered disloyal (enemy non-combatants) by the authorities, were deported to camps in Hungary (Tápiósüly and Kiskunhalas), where many died of malnutrition and diseases. The torpedo factory was attacked by the Italian airship "Citta` di Novara" in 1915 (later shot down by Austrian hydroplanes) and suffered damages. As a consequence - most of the torpedo production was moved to Sankt Pölten in Austria, further away from the frontlines. The city was again attacked by Italian airplanes in 1916 and suffered minor damage. The Naval Academy ceased its activities and was converted to a war hospital (the ex-naval academy buildings are still housing the city hospital to this day). On 10 February 1918 the Italian navy raided the nearby bay of Bakar causing little material damage but achieving a significant propaganda effect. As the war dragged on, the city's economy and the living standard of the population deteriorated rapidly. Due to a maritime blockade, the port traffic suffered a collapse - from 2,892.538 tons in 1913 (before the war) to only 330.313 tons in 1918. Many factories - lacking manpower and/or raw materials - reduced the production or simply closed. Shortages of food and other basic necessities became widespread. Even public safety became a problem with an increase in the number of thefts, violent incidents and war profiteering.^[28] The crisis escalated on October 23, 1918, when the Croatian troops stationed in Rijeka (79th regiment) mutinied and temporarily took control of the city.^[29][30][31] Amid growing chaos, the Austro-Hungarian empire dissolved a few weeks later, on November 12, 1918, starting a long period of instability and uncertainty for the city.

The "Fiume Question" and the Italian-Yugoslav dispute

Residents of Fiume cheering D'Annunzio and his Legionari, September 1919. At the time, Fiume had 22,283 Italians (46.9% of the total population of 49,608 inhabitants).^[32]

Trsat castle, south

Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary's disintegration in October 1918 during the closing weeks of World War I led to the establishment of rival Croatian-Serbian and Italian administrations in the city; both Italy and the founders of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) claimed sovereignty based on their "irredentist" ("unredeemed") ethnic populations.

10 Fiume krone provisional banknote (1920)

After a brief military occupation by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, followed by the unilateral annexation of the former Corpus Separatum by Belgrade, an international force of British, Italian, French and American troops entered the city in November 1918. Its future became a major barrier to agreement during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The US president Wilson even proposed to make Rijeka a free city and the headquarters of the newly formed League of Nations.^[33][34]

Location of the Free State of Fiume (1920–1924)

Adriatic Square and Adria Palace

The main problem arose from the fact that Rijeka was not assigned either to Italy or to Croatia (now Yugoslavia) in the Treaty of London which defined the post-war borders in the area. It remained assigned to Austria-Hungary because - until the very end of WWI - it was assumed that the Austro-Hungarian empire would survive WWI in some form and Rijeka was to become its only seaport (Trieste was to be annexed by Italy). However, once the empire disintegrated, the status of the city became disputed. Italy based its claim on the fact that Italians comprised the largest single nationality within the city (46.9% of the total population). Croats made up most of the remainder and were a majority in the surrounding area.^[32] Andrea Ossoinack, who had been the last delegate from Fiume to the Hungarian Parliament, was admitted to the conference as a representative of Fiume, and essentially supported the Italian claims. Nevertheless, at this point the city had had for years a strong and very active Autonomist Party seeking for Rijeka a special independent status among nations as a multicultural Adriatic city. This movement even had its delegate at the Paris peace conference - Ruggero Gotthardi.

The Regency of Carnaro

On 10 September 1919, the Treaty of Saint-Germain was signed, declaring the Austro-Hungarian monarchy dissolved. Negotiations over the future of the city were interrupted two days later when a force of Italian nationalist irregulars led by the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio captured the city.^[35] Because the Italian government, wishing to respect its international obligations, did not want to annex Fiume, D'Annunzio and the intellectuals at his side eventually established an independent state, the Italian Regency of Carnaro, a unique social experiment for the age and a revolutionary cultural experience in which various international intellectuals of diverse walks of life took part (like Osbert Sitwell, Arturo Toscanini, Henry Furst, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Harukichi Shimoi, Guglielmo Marconi, Alceste De Ambris, Whitney Warren and Léon Kochnitzky).^[36]

Among the many political experiments that took place during this experience, D'Annunzio and his men undertook a first attempt to establish a movement of non-aligned nations in the so-called League of Fiume, an organisation antithetic to the Wilsonian League of Nations, which it saw as a means of perpetuating a corrupt and imperialist status quo. The organisation was aiming primarily at helping all oppressed nationalities in their struggle for political dignity and recognition, establishing links with many movements on various continents, but it never found the necessary external support and its main legacy remains today the Regency of Carnaro's recognition of Soviet Russia, the first state in the world to have done so.^[37][38][39]

Fiume (Rijeka) in 1937

The Liberal Giovanni Giolitti became Premier of Italy again in June 1920; this signalled a hardening of official attitudes to D'Annunzio's coup. On 12 November, Italy and Yugoslavia concluded the Treaty of Rapallo, which envisaged Fiume becoming an independent state, the Free State of Fiume, under a government acceptable to both powers.^[40] D'Annunzio's response was characteristically flamboyant and of doubtful judgment: his declaration of war against Italy invited the bombardment by Italian royal forces which led to his surrender of the city at the end of the year, after five days' resistance (known as Bloody Christmas). Italian troops freed the city from D'Annunzio's militias in the last days of December 1920. After a world war and additional two years of economic paralysis the city economy was nearing collapse and the population was exhausted.

The Free State of Fiume

In a subsequent democratic election the Fiuman electorate on 24 April 1921 approved the idea of a free state of Fiume-Rijeka with a Fiuman-Italo-Yugoslav consortium ownership structure for the port, giving an overwhelming victory to the independentist candidates of the Autonomist Party. Fiume became consequently a full-fledged member of the League of Nations and the ensuing election of Rijeka's first president, Riccardo Zanella, was met with official recognition and greetings from all major powers and countries worldwide. Despite many positive developments leading to the establishment of the new state's structures, the subsequent formation of a constituent assembly for the state did not put an end to strife within the city. A brief Italian nationalist seizure of power ended with the intervention of an Italian royal commissioner, and another short-lived peace was interrupted by a local Fascist putsch in March 1922 which ended with a third Italian intervention to restore the previous order. Seven months later the Kingdom of Italy itself fell under Fascist rule and Fiume's fate was therefore sealed, the Italian Fascist Party being among the strongest proponents of the annexation of Fiume to Italy. The Free State of Fiume thus was to officially become the first country victim of fascist expansionism.

Capuchin Church of Our Lady of Lourdes

The territory of Fiume part of the Kingdom of Italy

The period of diplomatic acrimony was closed by the bilateral Treaty of Rome (27 January 1924), signed by Italy and Yugoslavia. With it the two neighbouring countries agreed to partition the territory of the small state. Most of the old Corpus Separatum territory became part of Italy, while a few Croatian/Slovenian-speaking villages to the north of the city were annexed by Yugoslavia.^[41] The annexation happened de facto on 16 March 1924, and it inaugurated about twenty years of Italian government for the city proper, to the detriment of the Croatian minority, which fell victim of discrimination and targeted assimilation policies.

The city became the seat of the newly formed Province of Fiume. In this period Fiume lost its commercial hinterland and thus part of its economic potential as it became a border town with little strategic importance for the Kingdom of Italy. However, since it retained the Free Port status and its iconic image in the nation-building myth, it gained many economic concessions and subsidies from the government in Rome. These included a separate tax treatment from the rest of Italy and a continuous inflow of investments from the Italian state (although not as generous as previous Hungarian ones). The city regained a good level of economic prosperity and was much richer than the surrounding Yugoslav lands, but the economic and demographic growth slowed down if compared to the previous Austro-Hungarian period.

World War II and the German Operational Zone

Rijeka under aerial bombardment by the Royal Air Force, 1944

Market

At the beginning of World War II Rijeka immediately found itself in an awkward position. The city was overwhelmingly Italian, but its immediate surroundings and the city of Sušak, just across the Rječina river (today a part of Rijeka proper) were inhabited almost exclusively by Croatians and part of a potentially hostile power—Yugoslavia. Once the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Croatian areas surrounding the city were occupied by the Italian military, setting the stage for an intense and bloody insurgency which would last until the end of the war. Partisan activity included guerrilla-style attacks on isolated positions or supply columns, sabotage and killings of civilians believed to be connected to the Italian and (later) German authorities. This, in turn, was met by stiff reprisals from the Italian and German military. On 14 July 1942, in reprisal for the killing of four civilians of Italian origin by Partisans, the Italian military killed 100 men from the suburban village of Podhum, resettling the remaining 800 people to concentration camps.^[42]

After the surrender of Italy to the Allies in September 1943, Rijeka and the surrounding territories were occupied and annexed by Germany, becoming part of the Adriatic Littoral Zone. Partisan activity continued and intensified. On 30 April 1944, in the nearby village of Lipa, German troops killed 263 civilians in reprisal for the killing of several soldiers during a Partisan attack.^[43]

The German and Italian occupiers and their local collaborators deported some 80 percent of the city's roughly 500 Jews to Auschwitz. A larger proportion of Rijeka's Jewish population was murdered in the Holocaust than that of any other city in Italian territory.^[44][45]

Transadria building

Because of its industries (oil refinery, torpedo factory, shipyards) and its port facilities, the city was also a target of more than 30 Anglo-American air attacks,^[46] which caused widespread destruction and hundreds of civilian deaths. Some of the heaviest bombardments happened on 12 January 1944 (attack on the refinery, part of the oil campaign),^[47] on 3–6 November 1944, when a series of attacks resulted in at least 125 deaths and between 15 and 25 February 1945 (200 dead, 300 wounded).^[48]

The area of Rijeka was heavily fortified even before World War II (the remains of these fortifications can be seen today on the outskirts of the city). This was the fortified border between Italy and Yugoslavia which, at that time, cut across the city area and its surroundings. As Yugoslav troops approached the city in April 1945, one of the fiercest and largest battles in this area of Europe ensued. The 27,000 German and additional Italian RSI troops fought tenaciously from behind these fortifications (renamed "Ingridstellung"—Ingrid Line—by the Germans). Under the command of the German general Ludwig Kübler they inflicted thousands of casualties on the attacking Partisans, which were forced by their superiors to charge uphill against well-fortified positions to the north and east of the city. The Yugoslav commanders did not spare casualties to speed up the capture of the city, fearing a possible English landing in area which would prevent their advance towards Trieste before the war was over. After an extremely bloody battle and heavy losses on the attackers side, the Germans were forced to retreat. Before leaving the city the German troops destroyed much of the harbour area and other important infrastructure with explosive charges. However, the German attempt to break out of the encirclement north-west of the city was unsuccessful. Of the approximately 27,000 German and other troops retreating from the city, 11,000 were killed or executed after surrendering, while the remaining 16,000 were taken as prisoners. Yugoslav troops entered Rijeka on 3 May 1945.^[49][50] The city had suffered extensive damage in the war. The economic infrastructure was almost completely destroyed, and of the 5,400 buildings in the city at the time, 2,890 (53%) were either completely destroyed or damaged.^[51]

Aftermath of World War II

The Governor's Palace, Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral

Highest residential skyscrapers in Croatia

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The city's fate was once again solved by a combination of force and diplomacy. Despite insistent requests from the Fiuman government in exile collaboration with the partisans and calls to respect the city-state's internationally recognized sovereignty, and despite generous initial promises given by the Yugoslav authorities of full independence and later of extensive autonomy for the city-state (the locals were promised various degrees of autonomy at different moments during the war, most notably the possibility to be a state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), the city was annexed by Yugoslavia and incorporated as part of the federal state of Croatia. All the many voices of dissent within the population were silenced in the 12 months following the end of the war. The situation created by the Yugoslav forces on the ground was eventually formalized by the 1947 Paris peace treaty between Italy and the Allies on 10 February 1947, despite both the complaints by the last democratically-elected government and its president-in-exile Riccardo Zanella and the attempts of the experienced Italian foreign minister Carlo Sforza to uphold the previous Wilsonian plans for a multicultural Free State solution, with a local headquarters for the newly created United Nations. Once the change to Yugoslav sovereignty was formalized, and in particular in the years leading to the Trieste Crisis of 1954, 58,000 of the city's 66,000 inhabitants were gradually pushed either to emigrate (they became known in Italian as esuli or the exiled ones from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia) or to endure harsh oppression by the new Yugoslav Communist regime. The Yugoslav communist party opted for a markedly Stalinist approach to solving the local ethnic question, in particular after the Autonomist sympathisers gained massive support in the first local elections held on the city's territory between 1945 and 1946.

The discrimination and persecution that many inhabitants experienced at the hands of Yugoslav officials, in the last days of World War II and the first years of peace, still remain painful memories for the locals and the esuli, and are somewhat of a taboo topic for Rijeka's political milieu, which is still largely denying the events.^[52] Summary executions of alleged Fascists (often well-known anti-fascists or openly apolitical), aimed at hitting the local intellectual class, the Autonomists, the commercial classes, the former Italian public servants, the military officials and often also ordinary civilians (at least 650 executions of Italians took place after the end of the war^[53]) eventually forced most Italophones (of various ethnicities) to leave Rijeka/Fiume in order to avoid becoming victims of a harsher retaliation. The removal was a meticulously planned operation, aimed at convincing the hardly assimilable Italian part of the autochthonous population to leave the country, as testified decades later by representatives of the Yugoslav leadership.^[54]

Swimming pool complex in Kantrida

Astronomical Centre Rijeka

The most notable victims of the political and ethnic repression of locals in this period was the Fiume Autonomists purge hitting all the autonomist figures still living in the city, and now associated in the Liburnian Autonomist Movement. The Autonomists actively helped the Yugoslav partisans in liberating the region from Fascist and Nazi occupation, and, despite receiving various promises of large political autonomy for the city, they were eventually all assassinated by the Yugoslav secret police OZNA in the days leading up to the Yugoslav army's victorious march into city and its aftermath.

In subsequent years, the Yugoslav authorities joined the municipalities of Fiume and Sušak and, after 1954, less than one third of the original population of the now united municipalities (mostly what was previously the Croat minority in Fiume and the majority in Sušak) remained in the city, because the old municipality of Fiume lost in these years more than 85% of the original population. The Yugoslav plans for a more obedient demographic situation in RIjeka culminated in 1954 during the Trieste crisis, when the Yugoslav Communist Party rallied many local members to ruin or destroy the most notable vestiges of the Italian/Venetian language and all bilingual inscriptions in the city (which had been legally granted a fully bilingual status after the occupation in 1945), eventually also 'de facto' (but not 'de jure') deleting bilinguilism, except in a handful of selected bilingual schools and inside the Italian Community's own building. After the war the local ethnic Italians of Rijeka left Yugoslavia for Italy (Istrian-Dalmatian exodus).^[55]

The city was then resettled by immigrants from various parts of Yugoslavia, once more changing heavily the city's demographics and its linguistic composition. These years coincided also with a period of general reconstruction and new program of industrialization after the destruction of the war. During the period of the Yugoslav Communist administration between the 1950s and the 1980s, the city became the main port of the Federal Republic and started to grow once again, both demographically and economically, taking advantage of the newly re-established hinterland that had been lacking during the Italian period, as well as the rebuilding after the war of its traditional manufacturing industries, its maritime economy and its port potential. This, paired with its rich commercial history, allowed the city to soon become the second richest (GDP per capita) district within Yugoslavia. However, many of these industries and companies, being based on a socialist planned economic model were not able to survive the move to a market-oriented economy in the early 1990s.

As Yugoslavia broke up in 1991, the former Federal State of Croatia became independent and, in the Croatian War of Independence that ensued, Rijeka became part of the newly independent Croatia. Since then, the city has stagnated economically and its demography has plunged. Some of its largest industries and employers have gone out of business, the most prominent among them being the Jugolinija shipping company, the torpedo factory, the paper mill and many other small or medium manufacturing and commercial companies. Other companies have struggled to remain economically viable (like the city's landmark 3. Maj shipyard). The number of people working in manufacturing dropped from more than 80,000 in 1990 to only 5,000 two decades later. Privatization scandals and the large scale corruption which marked Croatia's transition from socialism to capitalism as well as several years of war economy played a significant role in the collapse of the city's economy during the 1990s and early 2000s. A difficult and uncertain transition of the city's economy away from manufacturing and towards an economy based on services and tourism is still in progress.

In 2018, it was announced that, 65 years after the abolition of Italian as the official language of the city, new Croatian-Italian bilingual signs will be placed back in the Fiume part of the modern united municipality.^[56]

In 2020, Rijeka was voted the European Capital of Culture alongside Galway,^[57] with a planned program including more than 600 events of cultural and social importance.

City government building

Discover more about History related topics

History of Rijeka

History of Rijeka

Rijeka, formerly known as Fiume, is a city located in the northern tip of the Kvarner Gulf in the northern Adriatic. It is currently the third-largest city in Croatia. It was part of the Roman province of Dalmatia, and later of the Kingdom of Croatia. It grew during the 12th to 14th centuries as a seaport within the Holy Roman Empire, trading with Italian cities. Under the rule of the House of Habsburg from 1466, it was made a free city; and, although part of the Duchy of Carniola, it developed local self-government.

Croatia in personal union with Hungary

Croatia in personal union with Hungary

The Kingdom of Croatia entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary in 1102, after a period of rule of kings from the Trpimirović and Svetoslavić dynasties and a succession crisis following the death of king Demetrius Zvonimir. With the coronation of King Coloman of Hungary as "King of Croatia and Dalmatia" in 1102 in Biograd, the realm passed to the Árpád dynasty until 1301, when the (male) line of the dynasty died out. Then, kings from the Capetian House of Anjou, who were also cognatic descendants of the Árpád kings, ruled the kingdoms. Later centuries were characterized by conflicts with the Mongols, who sacked Zagreb in 1242, competition with Venice for control over Dalmatian coastal cities, and internal warfare among Croatian nobility. Various individuals emerged during the period, such as Paul I Šubić of Bribir, who was representing the most powerful Croatian dynasty at the time, the Šubić noble family. These powerful individuals were on occasion able to de facto secure great deal of independence for their fiefdoms. The Ottoman incursion into Europe in the 16th century significantly reduced Croatian territories and left the country weak and divided. After the death of Louis II in 1526 during the Battle of Mohács and a brief period of dynastic dispute, both crowns passed to the Austrian House of Habsburg, and the realms became part of the Habsburg monarchy.

Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

Habsburg monarchy

Habsburg monarchy

The Habsburg monarchy, also known as the Danubian monarchy, or Habsburg Empire, was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities that were ruled by the House of Habsburg, especially the dynasty's Austrian branch.

First French Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 11 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815.

Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a Central-Eastern European and multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, it was the third most populous monarchy in Europe after the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom. Along with Prussia, it was one of the two major powers of the German Confederation. Geographically, it was the third-largest empire in Europe after the Russian Empire and the First French Empire.

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War and was dissolved shortly after its defeat in the First World War.

Italian Regency of Carnaro

Italian Regency of Carnaro

The Italian Regency of Carnaro, also known in Italian as Impresa di Fiume, was a self-proclaimed state in the city of Fiume led by Gabriele d'Annunzio between 1919 and 1920.

Free State of Fiume

Free State of Fiume

The Free State of Fiume was an independent free state that existed between 1920 and 1924. Its territory of 28 km2 (11 sq mi) comprised the city of Fiume and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to the Kingdom of Italy.

Kingdom of Italy

Kingdom of Italy

The Kingdom of Italy was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and form the modern Italian Republic. The state resulted from a decades-long process, the Risorgimento, of consolidating the different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state. That process was influenced by the Savoy-led Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered Italy's legal predecessor state.

Croatia

Croatia

Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe. Its coast lies entirely on the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Italy to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city, Zagreb, forms one of the country's primary subdivisions, with twenty counties. The country spans 56,594 square kilometres, and has a population of nearly 3.9 million.

Arch

Arch

An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it.

The Rijeka Carnival (Croatian: Riječki karneval) is held each year before Lent (between late January and early March) in Rijeka, Croatia. Established in 1982, it has become the biggest carnival in Croatia. Every year there are numerous events preceding the carnival itself. First the mayor of Rijeka gives the symbolic key of the city to Meštar Toni, who is "the maestro" of the carnival, and he becomes the mayor of the city during the carnival, although this is only figuratively. Same day, there is an election of the carnival queen. As all the cities around Rijeka have their own events during the carnival time, Queen and Meštar Toni are attending most of them.

Rijeka Carnival

Also, every year the Carnival charity ball is held in the Governor's palace in Rijeka. It is attended by politicians, people from sport and media life, as well as a number of ambassadors.

The weekend before the main event there are two other events held. One is Rally Paris–Bakar (after the Dakar Rally). The start is a part of Rijeka called Paris after the restaurant located there, and the end is in city of Bakar, located about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south-east. All of the participants of the rally wear masks, and the cars are mostly modified old cars. The other event is the children's carnival, held, like the main one, on Rijeka's main walkway Korzo. The groups that participate are mostly from kindergartens and elementary schools, including groups from other parts of Croatia and neighboring countries. In 1982 there were only three masked groups on Rijeka's main walkway Korzo. In recent years, the international carnival has attracted around 15,000 participants from all over the world organized in over 200 carnival groups, with crowds of over 100,000.^[58]

In the census of 2011, the city proper had a population of 128,624, which included:^[59]

Other groups, including Slovenes and Hungarians, formed less than 1% each.

The Croatian census recognized two settlements within the City of Rijeka - the city itself with a population of 128,384, and "Bakar" with a population of 240,^[1] which is the village of Sveti Kuzam, separate from the neighboring town of Bakar. On 27 February 2014, Rijeka city council passed a decision to annex the settlement (named "Bakar-dio (Sv. Kuzam")) to the settlement of Rijeka.^[60]

The following tables list the city's population, along with the population of ex-municipality (disbanded in 1995), the urban and the metropolitan area.

• Ex-municipality: consists of other towns and municipalities (outside Rijeka city proper) in a former official union of adjacent settlements which was disbanded in 1995. It includes towns and municipalities of Kastav, Viškovo, Klana, Kostrena, Čavle, Jelenje, Bakar and Kraljevica.
• Urban area: considered as adjacent area. It includes the ex-municipality along with towns and municipalities of Opatija, Lovran, Mošćenička Draga and Matulji, which form urban agglomeration.
• Metro area: considered territory of consolidated expansion. It includes towns and municipalities of Crikvenica, Novi Vinodolski, Vinodolska, Lokve, Fužine, Delnice and Omišalj, which all gravitate towards the City of Rijeka.

Discover more about Demographics related topics

Croats

Croats

The Croats Croatian: Hrvati [xr̩ʋǎːti]) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Bosniaks

Bosniaks

The Bosniaks are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo as well as in Austria, Germany, Turkey and Sweden. They also constitute a significant diaspora with several communities across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.

Italians

Italians

Italians are a Romance ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region and its neighboring insular territories. Italians share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. Their predecessors differ regionally, but include the ancient Greeks in Magna Graecia, the Etruscans in northern Italy and, most notably, the Romans in central Italy, who helped create and evolved into the modern Italian identity. Legally, Italian nationals are citizens of Italy, regardless of ancestry or nation of residence and may be distinguished from ethnic Italians in general or from people of Italian descent without Italian citizenship and ethnic Italians living in territories adjacent to the Italian peninsula without Italian citizenship. The Latin equivalent of the term Italian had been in use for natives of the geographical region since antiquity.

Hungarians

Hungarians

Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic language family. There are an estimated 15 million ethnic Hungarians and their descendants worldwide, of whom 9.6 million live in today's Hungary. About 2 million Hungarians live in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 and are now parts of Hungary's seven neighbouring countries, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. Significant groups of people with Hungarian ancestry live in various other parts of the world, most of them in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina.

Bakar

Bakar

Bakar is a town in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in western Croatia. The population of the town was 8,279 according to the 2011 Croatian census, including 1,473 in the titular settlement. Ninety percent of the population declared themselves Croats by ethnicity. The largest ethnic minority are the Serbs with 2.91% of the population. The old part of Bakar is situated on a hill overlooking the Bay of Bakar. Bakar is the Croatian word for "copper".

Kastav

Kastav

Kastav is a town in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia, built on a 365 m high hill overlooking the Kvarner Gulf in the northern part of the Adriatic coast. It is in close vicinity of Rijeka, the largest port in Croatia, and the Opatija Riviera, one of the popular tourist destinations in Croatia.

Klana

Klana

Klana is a municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in northwestern Croatia.

Kostrena

Kostrena

Kostrena is a Croatian municipality east of Rijeka on the Kvarner Bay. It is famous for its beaches and a long tradition of seafaring and seamanship. Because of its rocky beaches and a walkway that goes along the shoreline, it is very popular for recreation and sports. A scenic hill walk called Trim-staza is located on the northeast side of Kostrena. There have been some archeological excavations in Kostrena, discovering ruins from the Roman times. Lately, urban development has been increasing. Kostrena is also an industrialized suburb of Rijeka. An oil refinery and an oil power plant are located at Urinj and a shipyard Viktor Lenac is located in the bay of Martinšćica.

Jelenje

Jelenje

Jelenje is a municipality in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in western Croatia. There are 5,344 inhabitants, with 94.6% Croats.Jelenje has about 425 residents. Jelenje is situated nearby to Lukeži, one notable place in the area is Grad Grobnik.

Kraljevica

Kraljevica

Kraljevica is a town in the Kvarner region of Croatia, located between Rijeka and Crikvenica, approximately thirty kilometers from Opatija and near the entrance to the bridge to the island of Krk. The population of the settlement of Kraljevica itself is 2,857 with a total of 4,618 in the area of the Town of Kraljevica, which is part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, and includes Šmrika. The town is known for its shipyard which has built a number of ships for the Croatian navy.

Lovran

Lovran

Lovran is a village and a municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia. It is situated in eastern Istria, on the western coast of the Kvarner Bay with a population of 4,101 in the municipality and 3,336 in the town itself. Its name derives from Laurel, as shown in the coat of arms.

Mošćenička Draga

Mošćenička Draga

Mošćenička Draga is municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia. It has 1,535 inhabitants, 90.7% of which are Croats. It is situated southwest of Opatija under Mt. Učka.

Scientists, professors and inventors

• Antonio Grossich, Fiuman-Italian doctor, professor of surgery and inventor of the Tincture of iodine, senator and irredentist politician.
• Peter Salcher, Fiuman-Austrian physicist of the Fiume Academy, pioneer of ultrafast photography and aerodynamic studies.
• Sándor Alexander Riegler, Hungarian professor of chemistry and physics.
• Archduke Joseph Karl of Austria, Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romani language philologist and Romani ethnographer, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
• Robert Ludvigovich Bartini, Fiuman-Soviet aircraft designer and scientist, creator of the Bartini A-57 and Bartini Beriev VVA-14.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Fiuman-Hungarian Psychology Professor at Claremont Graduate University, known as the architect of the notion of flow.
• Giovanni Luppis, Fiuman officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, lead inventor of the first torpedo.
• Paul Felix Nemenyi, Fiuman-Hungarian mathematician and physicist, and the probable father of former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer.
• William Klinger, historian of Fiuman, Croatian and Yugoslav history.
• Umberto D'Ancona, Fiuman-Italian Biology Professor and founder of the Hydro-biological Station in Chioggia.
• Giovanni Kobler, Fiuman historian, whose work is considered the major mile stone in the Rijeka historiography.
• Aladár Fest, Fiuman-Hungarian pioneer pedagogue, historian that wrote his works in Hungarian, German and Italian.

Arts and culture

• Aldo Lado, Italian film director
• Ödön von Horváth, Austro-Hungarian playwright, author of the play Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald, winner of the Kleist Prize in 1931.
• Heinrich von Littrow, Czech and Austrian poet, writer and cartographer.
• Marija Krucifiksa Kozulić, Catholic nun, founder of the order of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
• Oretta Fiume, Fiuman-Italian cinema star of the '30-'40s, with her final role in Fellini's La Dolce Vita.
• Janko Polić Kamov, Croatian writer and poet from Sušak.
• Irma Gramatica, Fiuman-Italian stage and film actress.
• Geronimo Meynier, Fiuman-Italian teen film actor.
• Romolo Venucci, Fiuman-Italian cubist painter and sculptor.
• Osvaldo Ramous, Fiuman poet and writer that signed the town's 20th century literature and cultural life.
• Leo von Littrow, Fiuman Impressionist artist, a major exponent of the artistic movement in Southern Europe.

Politics and institutions

• Riccardo Zanella, Fiuman politician, first and only elected president of the Free State of Fiume.
• Giovanni de Ciotta, Fiuman-Italian entrepreneur and politician.
• Michele Maylender, Fiuman politician during the Hungarian Crown's dependency, founder of the Autonomist Party of Fiume.
• Andrea Ossoinack, businessman and politician, among the founders of the Free State of Fiume and founder of the Autonomist League of Fiume.
• Alexander von Hoyos, Fiuman-Hungarian diplomat who played a major role during the July Crisis while serving as chef de cabinet of the Foreign Minister at the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
• Leo Valiani, Fiuman-Italian historian, politician and journalist, a prominent dissident during the Italian fascist regime.
• Mario Blasich, Fiuman politician and physician, victim of the Fiume Autonomists purge of 1945.
• Miklós Vásárhelyi, Fiuman-Hungarian dissident and writer, famous for his decades-long fight against the Hungarian communist party headed by János Kádár.
• János Kádár, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party, served for more than 30 years as the leader of Hungary.
• Giovanni Palatucci, last Italian superintendent of Fiume and Righteous Among The Nations.
• Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Croatia's 4th and first female president between 2015 and 2020.
• Nino Host Venturi, Fiuman-Italian fascist leader, politician and historian.
• Sebő Vukovics (Sava Vuković), Hungarian Minister of Justice in 1849 during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848

Economists and entrepreneurs

• Andrea Lodovico Adamich, Aristocratic trader from Fiume, builder, one of the most prominent supporters of economical and cultural development of the city.
• Robert Whitehead, English serial entrepreneur, known for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo, in collaboration with Giovanni Luppis in Fiume.
• Luigi Ossoinack, serial entrepreneur and businessman, one of the main drivers in Fiume's economic boom during the second half of the 19th century.

Sportsmen

• Mirza Džomba, Croatian handball player, world champion and Olympic champion.
• Ezio Loik, Italian footballer, member of the Grande Torino team which won 5 consecutive Serie A titles in the 1940s and the Italian national team.
• Mario Varglien, Italian footballer, Juventus player with record presences and world champion in 1934.
• Abdon Pamich, Fiuman-Italian race walker, gold medalist at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
• Ulderico Sergo, Fiuman-Italian professional boxer, gold medalist at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
• Orlando Sirola, Fiuman-Italian tennis player
• Luciano Sušanj, Fiuman-Croatian politician, European athletic champion
• Oscarre Vicich, footballer
• Vladimir Vujasinović, Serbian water polo player, World and European champion, Olympic silver and bronze medalist

Musicians

• Ivan Zajc, Fiuman-Croatian composer, conductor, director and teacher
• Dino Ciani, Fiuman-Italian pianist
• Damir Urban, Croatian musician and singer-songwriter, former member of the band Laufer

Other

• Agathe Whitehead, Fiuman-born English heiress and mother of the Trapp Family Singers

Tower center Rijeka

Discover more about Notable people from Rijeka related topics

Antonio Grossich

Antonio Grossich

Antonio Grossich was an italian surgeon from Fiume, a politician and a writer.

Peter Salcher

Peter Salcher

Peter Salcher was an Austrian and Croatian physicist.

Archduke Joseph Karl of Austria

Archduke Joseph Karl of Austria

Archduke Joseph Karl of Austria was a member of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. He was the second son of Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary and Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg.

Romani language

Romani language

Romani is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani, Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Romani (300,000). Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary – these are known by linguists as Para-Romani varieties, rather than dialects of the Romani language itself.

Bartini A-57

Bartini A-57

The Bartini A-57 was an experimental Soviet bomber of the mid-1950s that was designed by Robert Ludvigovich Bartini to take off and land on water. The aircraft was never put into production.

Bartini Beriev VVA-14

Bartini Beriev VVA-14

The Bartini Beriev VVA-14 Vertikaľno-Vzletayushchaya Amfibiya was a wing-in-ground-effect aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the early 1970s. Designed to be able to take off from the water and fly at high speed over long distances, it was to make true flights at high altitude, but also have the capability of flying efficiently just above the sea surface, using aerodynamic ground effect. The VVA-14 was designed by Hungarian-born designer Robert Bartini in answer to a perceived requirement to destroy United States Navy Polaris missile submarines. The final aircraft was retired in 1987.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He was also the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.

Claremont Graduate University

Claremont Graduate University

The Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is a private, all-graduate research university in Claremont, California. Founded in 1925, CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges which includes five undergraduate and two graduate institutions of higher education.

Flow (psychology)

Flow (psychology)

In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time. Flow is the melting together of action and consciousness; the state of finding a balance between a skill and how challenging that task is. It requires a high level of concentration; however, it should be effortless. Flow is used as a coping skill for stress and anxiety when productively pursuing a form of leisure that matches one's skill set.

Giovanni Luppis

Giovanni Luppis

Giovanni (Ivan) Biagio Luppis Freiherr von Rammer, sometimes also known by the Croatian name of Vukić, was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy who headed a commission to develop the first prototypes of the self-propelled torpedo.

Paul Nemenyi

Paul Nemenyi

Paul Felix Nemenyi was a Hungarian mathematician and physicist who specialized in continuum mechanics. He was known for using what he called the inverse or semi-inverse approach, which applied vector field analysis, to obtain numerous exact solutions of the nonlinear equations of gas dynamics, many of them representing rotational flows of nonuniform total energy. His work applied geometrical solutions to fluid dynamics. In continuum mechanics, "Nemenyi's theorem" proves that, given any net of isothermal curves, there exists a five parameter family of plane stress systems for which these curves are stress trajectories.

Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer

Robert James Fischer was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11–0 score, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. Qualifying for the 1972 World Championship, Fischer swept matches with Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen by 6–0 scores. After another qualifying match against Tigran Petrosian, Fischer won the title match against Boris Spassky of the USSR, in Reykjavík, Iceland. Publicized as a Cold War confrontation between the US and USSR, the match attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.

Italian high school

Turkish house located on the market

Palace Modello in Rijeka

Art installation "Masters" in Rijeka fish market

• Tvornica "Torpedo" (the Torpedo factory). The first European prototypes of a self-propelled torpedo, created by Giovanni Luppis, a retired naval engineer from Rijeka. The remains of this factory still exist, including a well-preserved launch ramp used for testing self-propelled torpedoes on which in 1866 the first torpedo was tested.
• The Croatian National Theatre building. Officially opened in October 1885, the grand theatre building includes work by the famous Venetian sculptor August Benvenuti and ceiling artist Franz Matsch, who collaborated with Ernst and Gustav Klimt.
  

  Art installation "Balthazartown Beach" at beach Grčevo
  Cityscape of square of Croatian National Theater I.P. Zajc and cargo containers train
• Svetište Majke Božje Trsatske – the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Trsat. Built 135 m (443 ft) above sea level on the Trsat hill during the late Middle Ages, it represents the Guardian of Travellers, especially seamen, who bring offerings to her so she will guard them or help them in time of trouble or illness. It is home to the Gothic sculpture of the Madonna of Slunj and to works by the Baroque painter C. Tasce.
• Trsat Castle, a 13th-century fortress, which offers magnificent vistas from its bastions and ramparts, looking down the Rječina river valley to the docks and the Kvarner Gulf.
• Petar Kružić staircase (or Trsat stairway), which links downtown Rijeka to Trsat. The stairway consists of 561 stone steps and was built for the pilgrims as the way to reach the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Trsat.
• Old gate or Roman arch. At first it was thought that this was a Roman Triumphal Arch built by the Roman Emperor Claudius Gothicus but later it was discovered to be just a portal to the pretorium, the army command in late antiquity.
• Rijeka Cathedral, dedicated to St. Vitus.
• Palace Modello designed by Buro Fellner & Helmer and built in 1885.
• Stadion Kantrida, was included on CNN's list of the world's most iconic and unusual football stadiums in 2011.^[61]
• Art installation "Masters",^[62] a site-specific art installation by Czech artist Pavel Mrkus was permanently placed beneath the high ceiling vault on the inner balconies of Rijeka's fish market. The installation consists of a video segment - a projection of Mrkus's video recorded on the DIMI fishing trawler while fishing in the Kvarnerić waters – and it is accompanied by an audio segment of the sounds of the sea and a fishing boat that can only be heard in the fish market gallery. It is a story that pays homage to those who are never seen here, but without whom there would be no fish on the tables.
• Art installation "Balthazartown Beach",^[63] a site-specific art installation found its place on the Grčevo beach, more commonly known as Pajol or Šestica, located at the very end of Pećine near the Viktor Lenac Shipyard. Under the mentorship of artist Igor Eškinja, students of the Academy of Applied Arts of the University of Rijeka designed a steel sculpture that changes the observer's experience of the environment and they created 15 inscriptions on a concrete plateau that encourage everyone to play and are visible only when in contact with water. The artistic process is inspired by the theme of Professor Balthazar, the world-famous and award-winning animated series, in which the scenographer used Rijeka as the primary inspiration in the creation of Balthazartown.

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Giovanni Luppis

Giovanni Luppis

Giovanni (Ivan) Biagio Luppis Freiherr von Rammer, sometimes also known by the Croatian name of Vukić, was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy who headed a commission to develop the first prototypes of the self-propelled torpedo.

Ernst Klimt

Ernst Klimt

Ernst Klimt was an Austrian history painter and decorative painter. He was a younger brother of the better-known artist Gustav Klimt.

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

Trsat Castle

Trsat Castle

Trsat Castle is a castle in Trsat, Croatia. It is thought that the castle lies at the exact spot of an ancient Illyrian and Roman fortress. The Croatian noble Vuk Krsto Frankopan is buried in one of the churches. The Trsat castle was completely reconstructed and renovated in the 19th century when the mausoleum of the military commander Laval Nugent was built in its interior. The courtyard of the castle has now been turned into a restaurant and many tourists visit the place during the summer months.

Rječina

Rječina

The Rječina, also known as the Fiumara, is a river in Croatia that flows into the Adriatic Sea at the city of Rijeka.

Kvarner Gulf

Kvarner Gulf

The Kvarner Gulf, sometimes also Kvarner Bay, is a bay in the northern Adriatic Sea, located between the Istrian peninsula and the northern Croatian Littoral mainland. The bay is a part of Croatia's internal waters.

Petar Kružić staircase

Petar Kružić staircase

Petar Kružić stairway, or Petar Kružić staircase, or Trsat stairway is the stone stairway in Rijeka (Croatia) that leads from Rijeka to Trsat.

Trsat

Trsat

Trsat is part of the city of Rijeka, Croatia, with a historic castle or fortress in a strategic location and several historic churches, in one of which the Croatian noble Prince Vuk Krsto Frankopan is buried. Trsat is a steep hill, 138 m high, rising over the gorge of the Rječina river, about a kilometre away from the sea; strategically significant from the earliest times right up to the 17th century, it is today a major Christian pilgrimage centre and home to a statue of Pope John Paul II who came to Trsat as a Pilgrim in 2003. Today, the University of Rijeka's newly constructed campus lies in the western part of Trsat.

Claudius Gothicus

Claudius Gothicus

Marcus Aurelius Claudius "Gothicus", also known as Claudius II, was Roman emperor from 268 to 270. During his reign he fought successfully against the Alemanni and decisively defeated the Goths at the Battle of Naissus. He died after succumbing to a "pestilence", possibly the Plague of Cyprian that had ravaged the provinces of the Empire.

Rijeka Cathedral

Rijeka Cathedral

The St. Vitus Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Rijeka, Croatia.

Fellner & Helmer

Fellner & Helmer

Fellner & Helmer was an architecture studio founded in 1873 by Austrian architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer.

Stadion Kantrida

Stadion Kantrida

Kantrida Stadium is a football stadium in the Croatian city of Rijeka. It is named after the Kantrida neighbourhood in which it is located, in the western part of the city. It has served as the home of the HNK Rijeka football club for most years since at least 1918. The stadium has a distinctive appearance as it is situated between steep cliffs, a remnant of an old quarry, just north of the stadium and the shore of the Adriatic on its south side.

Sablićevo Beach

Platak ski resort, north of Rijeka

Rijeka has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa by the Köppen climate classification) with warm summers and relatively mild and rainy winters.^[64] The terrain configuration, with mountains rising steeply just a few kilometres inland from the shores of the Adriatic, provides for some striking climatic and landscape contrasts within a small geographic area. Beaches can be enjoyed throughout summer in a typically Mediterranean setting along the coastal areas of the city to the east (Pećine, Kostrena) and west (Kantrida, Preluk). At the same time, the ski resort of Platak, located only about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the city, offers alpine skiing and abundant snow during winter months (at times until early May). The Kvarner Bay and its islands are visible from the ski slopes.^[65][66] Unlike typical mediterranean locations, Rijeka does generally not see a summer drought. Snow is rare (usually three days per year, almost always occurring in patches). There are 20 days a year with a maximum of 30 °C (86 °F) or higher, while on one day a year the temperature does not exceed 0 °C (32 °F).^[67] Fog appears in about four days per year, mainly in winter.^[67] The climate is also characterized by frequent rainfall. Cold (bora) winds are common in wintertime.

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Platak

Platak

Platak is a ski resort located north of Rijeka, Croatia.

Humid subtropical climate

Humid subtropical climate

A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents, generally between latitudes 25° and 40° and are located poleward from adjacent tropical climates. It is also known as warm temperate climate in some climate classifications.

Köppen climate classification

Köppen climate classification

The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notably in 1918 and 1936. Later, German climatologist Rudolf Geiger (1894–1981) introduced some changes to the classification system, which is thus sometimes called the Köppen–Geiger climate classification.

Kostrena

Kostrena

Kostrena is a Croatian municipality east of Rijeka on the Kvarner Bay. It is famous for its beaches and a long tradition of seafaring and seamanship. Because of its rocky beaches and a walkway that goes along the shoreline, it is very popular for recreation and sports. A scenic hill walk called Trim-staza is located on the northeast side of Kostrena. There have been some archeological excavations in Kostrena, discovering ruins from the Roman times. Lately, urban development has been increasing. Kostrena is also an industrialized suburb of Rijeka. An oil refinery and an oil power plant are located at Urinj and a shipyard Viktor Lenac is located in the bay of Martinšćica.

Alpine skiing

Alpine skiing

Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing, which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for recreation or for sport, it is typically practiced at ski resorts, which provide such services as ski lifts, artificial snow making, snow grooming, restaurants, and ski patrol.

Bora (wind)

Bora (wind)

The bora is a northerly to north-easterly katabatic wind in areas near the Adriatic Sea. Similar nomenclature is used for north-eastern winds in other littoral areas of eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea basins.

Precipitation

Precipitation

In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and "precipitates" or falls. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but colloids, because the water vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated: cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air. Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers.

Sunshine duration

Sunshine duration

Sunshine duration or sunshine hours is a climatological indicator, measuring duration of sunshine in given period for a given location on Earth, typically expressed as an averaged value over several years. It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period.

Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service

Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service

The Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service is a public entity for meteorology, hydrology and air quality in Croatia.

Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center.

Opatija

Opatija

Opatija is a town and a municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in western Croatia. The traditional seaside resort on the Kvarner Gulf is known for its Mediterranean climate and its historic buildings reminiscent of the Austrian Riviera.

Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. The population of the Belgrade metropolitan area is 1,685,563, according to the 2022 census. It is the third most populated of all cities on the Danube river.

Rijeka international Airport

Railway in Rijeka

Ferry in Rijeka harbour

The Port of Rijeka is the largest port in Croatia, with a cargo throughput in 2017 of 12.6 million tonnes, mostly crude oil and refined petroleum products, general cargo and bulk cargo, and 260,337 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).^[70] The port is managed by the Port of Rijeka Authority. The first record of a port in Rijeka date back to 1281, and in 1719, the Port of Rijeka was granted a charter as a free port. There are ferry connections between Rijeka and the surrounding islands and cities, but no direct international passenger ship connections. There are coastal lines to Split and onward to Dubrovnik, which operate twice weekly and have international connections.

The city is difficult to get to by air outside of the tourist season. The city's own international airport, Rijeka Airport is located on the nearby island of Krk across the tolled Krk Bridge. Buses, with a journey time of approximately 45 minutes, operate from Rijeka city center and nearby Opatija, with a schedule based on the planned arrival and departure times of flights. Handling 200,841 passengers in 2019, the facility is more of a charter airport than a serious transport hub, although various scheduled airlines have begun to service it with a comparatively large number of flights coming from airports in Germany. Most of these flights only operate during the tourist season between approximately May and October. Alternative nearby airports include Pula (around 90 minutes drive from Rijeka), Trieste (around 90 minutes), Ljubljana (around 2 hours), Zagreb (around 2 hours) and Venice (around 3 hours).

Rijeka has efficient road connections to other parts of Croatia and neighbouring countries. The A6 motorway connects Rijeka to Zagreb via the A1, while the A7 motorway, completed in 2004, links Rijeka with Ljubljana, Slovenia, via Ilirska Bistrica and with Trieste, Italy. The A7 acts as the Rijeka bypass motorway and facilitates access to the A8 motorway of the Istrian Y network starting with the Učka Tunnel, and linking Rijeka with Istria. As of August 2011, the bypass is being extended eastwards to the Krk Bridge area and new feeder roads are under construction.

Rijeka is integrated into the Croatian railway network and international rail lines. A fully electrified railway connects Rijeka to Zagreb and beyond towards Koprivnica and the Hungarian border as part of Pan-European corridor Vb. Rijeka is also connected to Trieste and Ljubljana by a separate electrified line that extends northwards from the city. Rijeka has direct connections by daily/night trains to Prague, München, Salzburg, Ljubljana, Bratislava and Brno. Construction of a new high performance railway between Rijeka and Zagreb, extending to Budapest is planned, as well as rail links connecting Rijeka to the island of Krk and between Rijeka and Pula.

Bus connections

Rijeka Bus Station is connected by regular bus lines with all major Croatian cities such as Zagreb, Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Đakovo, Nova Gradiška, Požega, Vukovar, Gospić, Karlovac, Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Makarska and Dubrovnik. Departures are frequent in the direction of Istria, the islands of Cres, Lošinj, Krk, Rab and Pag and the towns around Crikvenica, Novi Vinodolski and Senj. From international lines, there are regular departures in the direction of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.^[71]

KD Autotrolej d.o.o. is a carrier of passengers in the area of the City of Rijeka and cities / towns in the suburbs (the so-called Rijeka ring).

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Port of Rijeka

Port of Rijeka

The Port of Rijeka is a seaport in Rijeka, Croatia, located on the shore of the Kvarner Gulf in the Adriatic Sea. The first records of the port date to 1281. It was the main port of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, of Yugoslavia between World War II and 1991, and of Croatia after its independence. Today, it is the largest port in Croatia with a cargo throughput of 13.6 million tonnes (2020), mostly oil, general cargo and bulk cargo, and 344,091 Twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

Rijeka Airport

Rijeka Airport

Rijeka Airport is the international airport serving Rijeka, Croatia. It is located near the town of Omišalj on the island of Krk, 17 km from the Rijeka railway station. Most of the traffic to and from the airport occurs during the summer months, when it is used by several European low-cost airlines flying tourists to the northern parts of the Croatian coast.

Bulk cargo

Bulk cargo

Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities.

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik, historically known as Ragusa, is a city in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, by the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean, a seaport and the centre of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Its total population is 42,615. In 1979, the city of Dubrovnik was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in recognition of its outstanding medieval architecture and fortified old town.

Krk Bridge

Krk Bridge

Krk Bridge is a 1,430 m (4,692 ft) long reinforced concrete arch bridge connecting the Croatian island of Krk to the mainland. Carrying over a million vehicles per year, it was the last tolled bridge in Croatia that is not part of a motorway until the removal of tolls. The longer of the bridge's two arches is the third-longest concrete arch in the world and the longest outside of China, and among the longest arches of any construction. The bridge was completed and opened in July 1980 and originally named Tito's Bridge in honor of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, who had died two months earlier. The bridge has since been renamed Krk Bridge or Krčki most. The bridge was tolled since its opening until the removal of tolls on 15 June 2020. However, passage was toll free for Krk residents since 1999 and vehicles owned by Krk businesses since the 2000s. When the tolls were removed, passenger cars were being charged 35 kuna, southbound only.

Opatija

Opatija

Opatija is a town and a municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in western Croatia. The traditional seaside resort on the Kvarner Gulf is known for its Mediterranean climate and its historic buildings reminiscent of the Austrian Riviera.

Germany

Germany

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south; it covers an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), with a population of over 84 million within its 16 constituent states. Germany borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and most populous city is Berlin and its main financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.

Pula Airport

Pula Airport

Pula Airport is the international airport serving Pula, Croatia, and is located 6 km from the city centre. It served 777,568 passengers in 2019. The airport is designated as the alternative airport for parts of Slovenia and a multitude of cities in eastern Italy. It serves as a major access point to city of Pula, as well as most of Istria, most notably Brijuni national park.

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport, also known by its previous name Brnik Airport, is the international airport serving Ljubljana and the largest airport in Slovenia. It is located near Brnik, 24 km (15 mi) northwest of Ljubljana and 9.5 km (5.9 mi) east of Kranj, at the foothills of Kamnik–Savinja Alps.

A6 (Croatia)

A6 (Croatia)

The A6 motorway is a motorway in Croatia spanning 80.2 kilometres (49.8 mi). It connects the nation's capital, Zagreb, via the A1, to the seaport of Rijeka. The motorway forms a major north–south transportation corridor in Croatia and is a part of European route E65 Nagykanizsa–Zagreb–Rijeka–Zadar–Split–Dubrovnik–Podgorica. The A6 motorway route also follows Pan-European corridor Vb.

A1 (Croatia)

A1 (Croatia)

The A1 motorway is the longest motorway in Croatia, spanning 476.3 kilometers (296.0 mi). As it connects the nation's capital Zagreb to the second largest city Split, the motorway represents a major north–south transportation corridor in Croatia and a significant part of the Adriatic–Ionian motorway. Apart from Zagreb and Split, the A1 motorway runs near a number of major Croatian cities, provides access to several national parks or nature parks, world heritage sites, and numerous resorts, especially along the Adriatic Coast. National significance of the motorway is reflected through its positive economic impact on the cities and towns it connects as well as its importance to tourism in Croatia.

A7 (Croatia)

A7 (Croatia)

The A7 motorway is a 42.4-kilometre-long (26.3 mi) motorway in Croatia. It connects the nation's largest port in Rijeka, to the Croatian motorway network, as well as to the Rupa and Pasjak border crossings to Slovenia. The motorway forms part of a longitudinal transportation corridor in Croatia, and it is a part of European route E61 Villach–Ljubljana–Trieste–Rijeka. The A7 motorway route south of Orehovica interchange, where it also intersects Pan-European corridor Vb, is a part of European route E65.

The history of Rijeka's organised sports started between 1885 and 1888 with the foundation of the Club Alpino Fiumano in 1885, the Young American Cycle Club in 1887 (the first club of this American league to be founded in a foreign land), and the Nautico Sport Club Quarnero in 1888 by the Hungarian minority of the city. Even earlier, in 1873, following the initiative by Robert Whitehead, the first football match to be disputed in today's Republic of Croatia territory was played in Rijeka: the Hungarian Railways team and the English engineers-led team of the Stabilimento Tecnico di Fiume (later Torpedo Factory of Fiume). The first football club in Fiume was founded under the name of Fiumei Atletikai Club.

Today, HNK Rijeka are the city's main football team. They compete in the Croatian First Football League and were the champions of Croatia in 2016–17. Until July 2015, HNK Rijeka were based at the iconic Stadion Kantrida. With Kantrida awaiting reconstruction, they are based at the newly built Stadion Rujevica, their temporary home ground located in the club's new training camp. Additionally, HNK Orijent 1919 are based in Sušak and play in the Croatian Second Football League.

Rijeka's other notable sports clubs include RK Zamet and ŽRK Zamet (handball), VK Primorje EB (water polo), KK Kvarner (basketball) and ŽOK Rijeka (women's volleyball).

Rijeka hosted the 2008 European Short Course Swimming Championships. In its more than 80 years of history, LEN had never seen so many records set as the number of them set at Bazeni Kantrida (Kantrida Swimming Complex). A total of 14 European records were set of which 10 world records and even 7 world-best times. This championship also presented a record in the number of participating countries. There were more than 600 top athletes, from some 50 European countries. Swimmers from 21 nations won medals and 40 of the 51 national member Federations of LEN were present in Rijeka.

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Association football

Association football

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposite team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing side. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is considered the world's most popular sport.

HNK Rijeka

HNK Rijeka

Hrvatski nogometni klub Rijeka, commonly referred to as NK Rijeka or simply Rijeka, is a Croatian professional football club from the city of Rijeka.

2016–17 Croatian First Football League

2016–17 Croatian First Football League

The 2016–17 Croatian First Football League was the 26th season of the Croatian First Football League, the national championship for men's association football teams in Croatia, since its establishment in 1992. The fixtures were announced on 15 June 2016. The season started on 15 July 2016 and finished on 27 May 2017. The league was contested by 10 teams. Rijeka won their first ever title, which broke Dinamo Zagreb's dominance of eleven consecutive titles.

Stadion Kantrida

Stadion Kantrida

Kantrida Stadium is a football stadium in the Croatian city of Rijeka. It is named after the Kantrida neighbourhood in which it is located, in the western part of the city. It has served as the home of the HNK Rijeka football club for most years since at least 1918. The stadium has a distinctive appearance as it is situated between steep cliffs, a remnant of an old quarry, just north of the stadium and the shore of the Adriatic on its south side.

Stadion Rujevica

Stadion Rujevica

Stadion Rujevica is a stadium in the city of Rijeka, Croatia. The stadium is commonly referred to as Rujevica after its location. From August 2015, the stadium is a temporary home ground for HNK Rijeka during construction of the new Stadion Kantrida. The stadium is part of the training camp used by the club's youth academy, which includes four additional fields. Once the new Kantrida is built, the stadium will be used as the club's training ground.

Sušak, Rijeka

Sušak, Rijeka

Sušak is a part of the city of Rijeka in Croatia, where it composes the eastern part of the city, separated from the city center by the Rječina river, which in former times served as an international border. Notable features of Sušak include the public beaches at Pećina and Glavanovo, along with the Tower Center shopping mall.

RK Zamet

RK Zamet

RK Zamet is a handball club from Rijeka, Croatia, formed in 1957. The club currently competes in the Croatian Premier Handball League and the Croatian Handball Cup. Although the club has not won any mayor trophies, it has produced four Olympic gold medalists: Valter Matošević, Alvaro Načinović, Valner Franković and Mirza Džomba. Four additional Olympic gold medalists played for the club, including Irfan Smajlagić, Vladimir Šujster, Zlatko Saračević and Božidar Jović, and Jakov Gojun, who has a bronze medal.

Handball

Handball

Handball is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the opposing team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.

KK Kvarner 2010

KK Kvarner 2010

Košarkaški klub Kvarner 2010 is a professional basketball club based in Rijeka, Croatia. It competes in the A-2 Hrvatska Liga, the second highest basketball league in Croatia.

Basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender's hoop, while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

Volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since Tokyo 1964. Beach volleyball was introduced to the programme at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. The adapted version of volleyball at the Summer Paralympic Games is sitting volleyball.

2008 European Short Course Swimming Championships

2008 European Short Course Swimming Championships

The European Short Course Swimming Championships 2008 took place in Rijeka, Croatia from Thursday 11 to Sunday 14 December 2008.

Twin towns – sister cities

Lantern, a gift from the Japanese city Kawasaki to the Rijeka

Rijeka is twinned with:^[72]

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List of twin towns and sister cities in Croatia

List of twin towns and sister cities in Croatia

This is a list of municipalities in Croatia which have standing links to local communities in other countries known as "town twinning" or "sister cities".

Kawasaki, Kanagawa

Kawasaki, Kanagawa

Kawasaki is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, one of the main cities of Greater Tokyo Area and Keihin Industrial Area. It is the second most populated city in Kanagawa Prefecture after Yokohama, and the eighth most populated city in Japan.

Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center.

Cetinje

Cetinje

Cetinje is a town in Montenegro. It is the former royal capital of Montenegro and is the location of several national institutions, including the official residence of the president of Montenegro. According to the 2011 census, the town had a population of 14,093 while the Cetinje Municipality had 16,657 residents as of 2011. Cetinje is the centre of Cetinje Municipality. The city rests on a small karst plain surrounded by limestone mountains, including Mount Lovćen, the legendary mountain in Montenegrin historiography. Cetinje was founded in the 15th century and became a cradle of the culture of Montenegro. Its status as the honorary capital of Montenegro is due to its heritage as a long-serving former capital of Montenegro.

Bitola

Bitola

Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, 14 kilometres north of the Medžitlija-Níki border crossing with Greece. The city stands at an important junction connecting the south of the Adriatic Sea region with the Aegean Sea and Central Europe, and it is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It has been known since the Ottoman period as the "City of Consuls", since many European countries had consulates in Bitola.

Csepel

Csepel

Csepel is the 21st district and a neighbourhood in Budapest, Hungary. Csepel officially became part of Budapest on 1 January 1950.

Burgas

Burgas

Burgas, sometimes transliterated as Bourgas, is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a population of 202,694 inhabitants, while 277,922 live in its urban area. It is the capital of Burgas Province and an important industrial, transport, cultural and tourist centre.

Faenza

Faenza

Faenza is an Italian city and comune of 59,063 inhabitants in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 kilometres southeast of Bologna.

Genoa

Genoa

Genoa is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, which in 2015 became the Metropolitan City of Genoa, had 855,834 resident persons. Over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera.

Imola

Imola

Imola is a city and comune in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, located on the river Santerno, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The city is traditionally considered the western entrance to the historical region Romagna.

Hamburg

Hamburg

Hamburg, officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany after Berlin, as well as the overall 7th largest city and largest non-capital city in the European Union with a population of over 1.85 million. Hamburg is 941 km2 in area. Hamburg's urban area has a population of around 2.5 million and is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, which has a population of over 5.1 million people in total. The city lies on the River Elbe and two of its tributaries, the River Alster and the River Bille. One of Germany's 16 federated states, Hamburg is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south.

Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe is the third-largest city of the German state (Land) of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. It is also a former capital of Baden, a historic region named after Hohenbaden Castle in the city of Baden-Baden. Located on the right bank of the Rhine near the French border, between the Mannheim/Ludwigshafen conurbation to the north and Strasbourg/Kehl to the south, Karlsruhe is Germany's legal center, being home to the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) and the Public Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice.

The German western Winnetou movies from the 1960s, based on Karl May novels, were in part filmed on location in the outskirts of Rijeka.^[75]

Marvel's villain Purple Man originates from this city, and Rijeka has been present in many of the character's stories.

The setting of the 1970s cartoon series Professor Balthazar was inspired by Rijeka.^[76]

The 1980s American TV series The Winds of War was in part filmed in Rijeka and the surrounding areas.^[77]

A stylised version of Fiume during the 1920s was one of the main settings in the 1992 movie Porco Rosso by world acclaimed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, as the town in front of which the fantastical "Hotel Adriano" is found and to which it is connected by a boat service taken by the protagonist.^[78]

Bruce Sterling's November 2016 novel, written in collaboration with Warren Ellis, Pirate Utopia,^[79] a dieselpunk alternative history, is set in Fiume (now Rijeka) in 1920 during the short-lived Italian Regency of Carnaro.^[80]

The TV series Novine (The Paper),^[81][82] which has been streaming on Netflix since April 2018, is based in Rijeka and the city was used as the main filming location.^[83]

In 2019 the movie The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard with was in part filmed in Rijeka.^[84]

Recently Rijeka - with its historic industrial sites, unusual hilly setting, sweeping views and retro architecture - has become a popular location for the filming of TV-advertisements. Examples include advertisements for the Belgian internet provider Telenet, Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone, German retail chain DM, Japanese Honda Civic Type R cars, Ukrainian seafood restaurant chain Flagman, Slovenian soft drink brand Cockta, German car manufacturer Mercedes and others.^[85][86]

Discover more about In popular culture related topics

Karl May

Karl May

Karl Friedrich May was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main protagonists and in the Orient and Middle East with fictional characters Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a division of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, Magazine Management/Atlas Comics in 1951 and its predecessor, Marvel Mystery Comics, the Marvel Comics title/name/brand was first used in June 1961.

Professor Balthazar

Professor Balthazar

Professor Balthazar is a Croatian animated television series for children about an old inventor that was produced between 1967 and 1978. It was created by animator Zlatko Grgić.

Porco Rosso

Porco Rosso

Porco Rosso is a 1992 Japanese animated adventure-fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is based on Hikōtei Jidai, a three-part 1989 watercolor manga by Miyazaki. It stars the voices of Shūichirō Moriyama, Tokiko Kato, Akemi Okamura and Akio Ōtsuka. Animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Japan Airlines and the Nippon Television Network, it was produced by Toshio Suzuki and distributed by Toho. Its score is by Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi.

Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation.

Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling

Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the Mirrorshades anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre.

Dieselpunk

Dieselpunk

Dieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. Coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his tabletop role-playing game Children of the Sun, the term has since been applied to a variety of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.

Novine

Novine

Novine, is a Croatian drama series that has been broadcast on Hrvatska Radiotelevizija since 2016.

Netflix

Netflix

Netflix, Inc. is an American media company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it operates the over-the-top subscription video on-demand service Netflix brand, which includes original films and television series commissioned or acquired by the company, and third-party content licensed from other distributors. Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association—having become the first streaming company to become a member.

Filming location

Filming location

A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage. In filmmaking, a location is any place where a film crew will be filming actors and recording their dialog. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered a second unit photography site. Filmmakers often choose to shoot on location because they believe that greater realism can be achieved in a "real" place; however, location shooting is often motivated by the film's budget. Many films shoot interior scenes on a sound stage and exterior scenes on location.

Industrial archaeology

Industrial archaeology

Industrial archaeology (IA) is the systematic study of material evidence associated with the industrial past. This evidence, collectively referred to as industrial heritage, includes buildings, machinery, artifacts, sites, infrastructure, documents and other items associated with the production, manufacture, extraction, transport or construction of a product or range of products. The field of industrial archaeology incorporates a range of disciplines including archaeology, architecture, construction, engineering, historic preservation, museology, technology, urban planning and other specialties, in order to piece together the history of past industrial activities. The scientific interpretation of material evidence is often necessary, as the written record of many industrial techniques is often incomplete or nonexistent. Industrial archaeology includes both the examination of standing structures and sites that must be studied by an excavation.

Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 14,125 islands, with the five main islands being Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto.