Origins of Zagreb

Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, grew from two medieval settlements on neighboring hills, Kaptol, the seat of the bishop and cathedral chapter, and Gradec, a town of merchants and craftsmen. The Hungarian king Ladislaus I founded the diocese of Zagreb, and in the thirteenth century King Béla IV granted Gradec the status of a free royal town through a Golden Bull, after the Mongol invasion. The two towns often quarreled, and were only united in the nineteenth century. Zagreb became the center of the Croatian national revival in the nineteenth century, and the capital of Croatia within Yugoslavia, and then of independent Croatia in 1991. The city has a well-preserved old upper town and a lower town with grand Austro-Hungarian buildings.

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