page_title: Dalmatia
section_title: Early modern period (1420–1815)
hierarchical_section_title: Dalmatia / History / Early modern period (1420–1815)
caption_attribution_description: English: Bosnia Eyalet in 1683. Tributary states of the Ottoman Empire are shown in pink.
context_page_description: Dalmatia is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria.
  Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, stretching from the island of Rab in the north to the Bay of Kotor in the south. The hinterland ranges in width from fifty kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south; it is mostly covered by the rugged Dinaric Mountains. Seventy-nine islands run parallel to the coast, the largest being Brač, Pag, and Hvar. The largest city is Split, followed by Zadar and Šibenik.
  The name of the region stems from an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, who lived in the area in classical antiquity. Later it became a Roman province, and as result a Romance culture emerged, along with the now-extinct Dalmatian language, later largely replaced with related Venetian. With the arrival of Croats to the area in the 8th century, who occupied most of the hinterland, Croatian and Romance elements began to intermix in language and culture.
  After the Medieval Kingdom of Croatia fell in 1102, its cities and lands were often conquered by, or switched allegiance to, the kingdoms of the region during the Middle Ages.
context_section_description: From 1420 to 1797 the Republic of Venice controlled most of Dalmatia, calling it Esclavonia in the 15th century with the southern enclave, the Bay of Kotor, being called Albania Veneta. Venetian was the commercial lingua franca in the Mediterranean at that time, and it heavily influenced Dalmatian and to a lesser degree coastal Croatian and Albanian.
  The southern city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) became de facto independent in 1358 through the Treaty of Zadar when Venice relinquished its suzerainty over it to Louis I of Hungary. In 1481, Ragusa switched allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. This gave its tradesmen advantages such as access to the Black Sea, and the Republic of Ragusa was the fiercest competitor to Venice's merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries.
  The Republic of Venice was also one of the powers most hostile to the Ottoman Empire's expansion, and participated in many wars against it. As the Ottomans took control of the hinterland, many Christians took refuge in the coastal cities of Dalmatia. The border between the Dalmatian hinterland and the Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina greatly fluctuated until the Morean War, when the Venetian capture of Knin and Sinj set much of the borderline at its current position.
  After the Great Turkish War and the Peace of Passarowitz, more peaceful times made Dalmatia experience a period of certain economic and cultural growth in the 18th century, with the re-establishment of trade and exchange with the hinterland. This period was abruptly interrupted with the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797. Napoleon's troops stormed the region and ended the independence of the Republic of Ragusa as well, saving it from occupation by the Russian Empire and Montenegro.
  In 1805, Napoleon created his Kingdom of Italy around the Adriatic Sea, annexing to it the former Venetian Dalmatia from Istria to Kotor. In 1808 he annexed to this Italian Kingdom the just conquered Republic of Ragusa. A year later in 1809 he removed the Venetian Dalmatia from his Kingdom of Italy and created the Illyrian Provinces, which were annexed to France, and created his marshal Nicolas Soult Duke of Dalmatia.
  Napoleon's rule in Dalmatia was marked with war and high taxation, which caused several rebellions. On the other hand, French rule greatly contributed to Croatian national awakening (the first newspaper in Croatian was published then in Zadar, the Il Regio Dalmata – Kraglski Dalmatin), the legal system and infrastructure were finally modernized somewhat in Dalmatia, and the educational system flourished. French rule brought a lot of improvements in infrastructure; many roads were built or reconstructed. Napoleon himself blamed Marshal Auguste Marmont, the governor of Dalmatia, that too much money was spent. However, in 1813, the Habsburgs once again declared war on France and, by the following year, had restored control over Dalmatia.
caption: Ottoman Bosnia at its peak territorial extent just before the Morean War in 1684
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