Kotor

A settlement stood here in Illyrian times, and the town is first recorded in 168 BC; under Rome it was Ascrivium, part of the province of Dalmatia. The emperor Justinian built a fortress above it in 535, Saracen raiders plundered it in 840, and in the 10th century the defences were pushed up towards the peak of Saint Ivan. Its people were Romance-speaking — the Dalmatian language was still spoken here until the 11th century — and the modern name probably comes from the Byzantine Dekatera. Stefan Nemanja took the town in 1185, and under the Serbian rulers it kept its own statute and institutions and grew into a trading port that rivalled Ragusa (Dubrovnik).

After passing between Hungary, Venice and Bosnia, Kotor placed itself under Venetian protection in 1420 and stayed Venetian until 1797. Those centuries gave it its architecture and the walls that climb the mountain; they also brought Ottoman sieges in 1538 and 1657, plague in 1572 and earthquakes in 1563 and 1667 that nearly destroyed it. Austrian, Russian, French and British forces followed one another during the Napoleonic wars — British sailors hauled guns up the mountain to force the French garrison to surrender in 1814 — and the Congress of Vienna returned the town, as Cattaro, to Austria.

Under Austria-Hungary the bay became a main naval base, and in February 1918 sailors mutinied there. After the First World War the town became part of Yugoslavia and officially Kotor; Italy annexed it from 1941 to 1943. Since the early 2000s tourism, much of it from cruise ships, has transformed the town.

Kotor has always faced two ways. Its old Italian-speaking community, dominant until the 19th century, has almost gone, but the town is still the seat of the Catholic bishops of the bay, and Catholic and Orthodox churches stand a few lanes apart inside the walls; at the 2011 census most of the municipality's people were Orthodox and about one in eight Catholic. The Venetian stone lion that once stood over the main gate was replaced after the socialist revolution by the emblem of Yugoslavia, which is still there.

Summer is the season of public life: the summer carnival and Bokeljska noć draw crowds to the waterfront, and Kotor co-hosted the World Carnival City Congress in 2009. The Kotor Festival of Theatre for Children, founded in 1993 near the place where the first play for children in the Balkans was staged in 1829, has received the European Festivals Association's EFFE label. The town's many cats have become its unofficial symbol, with a cat museum, cat shops and a Cats' Square, and residents leave out food and water for them.

Water polo is the passion. Primorac Kotor won the LEN Champions League in 2009 and another local club, VA Cattaro, the LEN Euro Cup in 2010, while the football club FK Bokelj plays at the Stadion pod Vrmcem.

The town proper covers only the walled old town and has fewer than 1,400 residents. Close to 13,000 people live in the wider urban area, which runs along the shore through Dobrota and Škaljari, and the whole municipality — including Perast, Risan and the villages around the bay — had about 22,000 at the 2023 census.

Tourism dominates the economy. The town received more than 250,000 tourists in 2019, many arriving by cruise ship. The old town lives on its cafés, restaurants, boutiques and guided groups, while most residents' homes and the bus station lie outside the walls.

Recent years have added new draws: the University of Montenegro's Institute for Marine Biology opened the country's only public aquarium here in 2021, and since 2024 a cable car has linked the coast with Lovćen National Park. The season shapes the year — a crowded summer of ships and festivals, then a quieter, very wet winter.

Kotor eats like the rest of the Boka: Mediterranean, with a clear Italian influence, built around the sea. Grilled or fried squid, octopus salad, prawns, mussels, tuna and black risotto made with cuttlefish are the coast's standard seafood dishes, served in restaurants inside the walls and along the waterfront.

From the mountain behind the town come njeguški pršut, the smoked ham of the village of Njeguši on Lovćen, and njeguški sir, a cheese kept in oil — two of the best-known products of Montenegrin cooking. Both are sold at the large produce market just outside the city walls, which also has fresh vegetables and fruit.

To drink there are Montenegrin wines, above all the red Vranac and the white Krstač, the beer Nikšićko, and rakija, the fruit brandy, especially grape loza. Coffee is part of the day's rhythm: espresso is drunk slowly at café tables on the old town's squares, in the shade of the walls.