Zagreb

Zagreb's name first appears in connection with 1094, when the Hungarian king Ladislaus founded a diocese here on his return from a campaign against the Kingdom of Croatia. Two towns grew up on neighbouring hills above the Sava: Kaptol, the settlement of the clergy around the cathedral, and Gradec, a fortified town of craftsmen and merchants. In 1242 King Béla IV, who had sheltered in Gradec from the Mongols, granted it the Golden Bull, giving its citizens self-government and their own courts. The two towns, divided by the Medveščak stream, quarrelled for centuries over rents and property, and the bishop twice excommunicated the people of Gradec.

Zagreb nonetheless became the political centre of the Croatian lands, where the Sabor met, and in 1669 the Jesuits founded the academy that grew into the University of Zagreb. In 1850 Gradec, Kaptol and the surrounding settlements were united into one city under its first mayor, Janko Kamauf. After the earthquake of 1880 a building boom lasting until the First World War gave the Lower Town the layout it has today, and the first horse-drawn tram ran in 1891. In the 1920s the population grew by 70 per cent, the largest boom in the city's history.

After the Second World War, working-class districts spread towards the Sava, and from the mid-1950s Novi Zagreb was built on the far bank, with the airport and the freight railway hub further south. Zagreb became the capital of independent Croatia in 1991. On 22 March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake — the strongest since 1880 — damaged many buildings in the historic centre, including the cathedral and the arcades of Mirogoj.

Zagreb's culture is Central European in style: theatre, opera at the Croatian National Theatre, museums and galleries, and above all the café. Coffee is taken slowly, and the špica, the late-morning Saturday coffee with friends in the cafés of the centre, for which people dress up, is the city's best-known social ritual. In the Upper Town the Grič cannon has fired from the Lotrščak Tower at noon every day since 1877, and members of the Order of the Silver Dragon re-enact the old conflicts between Gradec and Kaptol for visitors on St Mark's Square.

The villages on the slopes of Medvednica, such as Šestine, Gračani and Remete, keep older traditions, including folk costume, the red Šestine umbrella and decorated gingerbread. The city's museums range from the national collections in the Lower Town to the Museum of Broken Relationships, a Zagreb idea that has since opened a second permanent home in Chiang Mai. In December the Advent season fills the squares with markets, concerts and lights, and in June the INmusic festival brings international bands to Jarun lake.

Sport is followed passionately. Dinamo Zagreb, the country's best-known football club, plays at Maksimir Stadium, and the city also has leading basketball, handball and water polo clubs. Sljeme, the summit of Medvednica, has ski runs and held its first international ski championship race in January 2005. The city celebrates its own day on 16 November.

About 767,000 people lived in the city at the 2021 census, and the metropolitan area, which takes in Zagreb County, has about 1.1 million — roughly a quarter of Croatia's population. Most residents are Croats, with Serb, Bosniak, Albanian, Romani and other smaller communities. Beyond the historic centre, people live in the older districts of the Lower Town, Trešnjevka and Maksimir, in the hillside neighbourhoods below Medvednica, in Sesvete to the east, and in the large housing estates of Novi Zagreb across the river such as Mamutica.

The city is the country's economic centre, home to government, the university, banks and most national companies. In August 2025 the average monthly net salary in Zagreb was about €1,446, and unemployment at the end of 2025 was around 4.6 per cent. Tomislav Tomašević of the green-left party We Can! was elected mayor in 2021 and re-elected in 2025, and since 2024 residents have been able to propose and discuss neighbourhood projects through participatory budgeting.

The day runs on trams and coffee: a morning market trip to Dolac or a neighbourhood market, a long coffee on a terrace, and evenings out on Tkalčićeva or in the Lower Town. Summer weekends empty towards Jarun or the coast, winter weekends towards Sljeme. Repairs to buildings damaged in the 2020 earthquake continue to shape the historic centre.

Zagreb cooking belongs to the hearty Central European tradition of continental Croatia. Turkey, duck or goose is roasted and served with mlinci, thin sheets of flat pasta soaked in the roasting juices. Zagrebački odrezak, the city's famous cutlet, is a kind of cordon bleu, and faširanci are fried patties of minced meat with onion and breadcrumbs. Sarma — sauerkraut leaves rolled around minced pork and rice — is served with mashed potato.

Štrukli, dough filled with cottage cheese and boiled or baked, is a speciality of the city and the surrounding Zagorje, and bučnica is a related strudel filled with pumpkin. For dessert there is kremšnita, a slice of custard between layers of flaky pastry, and orehnjača, a walnut roll.

Dolac, the main market just above Ban Jelačić Square, supplies much of the centre with fruit, vegetables, cheese and cream from the surrounding countryside, with fish in its own market hall alongside. The restaurants around Dolac and Kaptol serve this home cooking, while the cafés of Tkalčićeva and the Lower Town are where the city drinks its coffee and, in the evening, its wine and beer.