precious-postcards

Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor

In the Middle Ages, this natural harbour on the Adriatic coast in Montenegro was an important artistic and commercial centre with its own famous schools of masonry and iconography. A large number of the monuments (including four Romanesque churches and the town walls) were seriously damaged by the 1979 earthquake but the town has been restored, largely with UNESCO’s help.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/125

The Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor encompasses the cultural heritage around the Bay of Kotor. The bay has been inhabited since antiquity and has some well preserved medieval towns such as Kotor, Risan and Perast.

In the late 14th century, Kotor was seized by the Venetian Republic. It became an important commercial and artistic center. Its city walls received their current structure in Venetian times too. The circumference of the outer wall is 4.5 km. It represents one of the most important examples of defensive Venetian military architecture.

The area has been hit with severe earthquakes in 1563, 1667 and 1979. The last one, which measured 7.0 on the Richter schale, damaged many buildings and led to the subsequent inscription on the WH List and the List in Danger in the same year. 

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/kotor.html