Located at the deepest end of Boka Kotorska (Bay of Kotor), in a triangle bordered by Adriatic Sea, the river Skurda and St. John hill, Kotor has a long history, extended until the Illyrian times. The romans named it Acruvium, and ruled it until the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when it became part of the Byzantine Empire for several hundred years, with brief interruptions, under the name Dekaderon. Between 1185 and 1371 it was one of the coastal towns which were part of the Medieval Serbian state, under the management of dynasty Nemanjic, who gave it the name Kotor. Then it was an independent republic for almost 30 years (1391-1420), but, because of the danger represented by Ottoman Empire, in 1420 the people from Kotor voluntarily gave the management of the town to the Venetian Republic. Renamed Cattaro, it was part of the Venetian Albania province until 1797, except for brief periods of Ottoman rule (1538-1571, 1657-1699). After the Treaty of Campo Formio, it passed to the Habsburg Monarchy until 1918, when became a part of Yugoslavia and officially became known again as Kotor.
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