Cultural Landscape of the Brijuni Archipelago, Fažana

Brijuni is a group of islands off Fažana in Istria County, and its appeal lies in the fact that nature and several thousand years of history are intertwined in a small space. Because of this mixture the area has been assessed as a cultural landscape of exceptional value.

Traces of people reach back to the Neolithic. In antiquity the islands were a landed estate with Roman farming villas, and the complex in the Verige bay bears witness to a high standard of living. In late antiquity a fortified settlement, a castrum, arose on the west coast of Veliki Brijun, and in the 12th century the patriarchs of Aquileia built a residential and defensive building in the harbour. From the second half of the 19th century the archipelago was part of the fortifications around the Pula harbour. At the end of the same century it was bought by the industrialist Paul Kupelwieser, who turned it into a resort with villas, hotels, a bathing place, a zoo, a racecourse and golf and polo grounds. In the 20th century Brijuni was the summer residence of President Josip Broz Tito, and state villas were built there as well.

The archipelago is a protected cultural property, entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-5983.

Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: DGU (centre of the settlement).