Korcula Town Walls

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Korcula Town Walls – Due to its strategic location in this part of the Adriatic, Korcula Old Town was surrounded by high walls and towers from its early beginnings. Large sequences of defensive walls structures still dominate the Old town and can be seen on several places around it, particularly impressive when approached from the sea from the north and eastern side of the town (above photo).They represent a fine examples of medieval European war architecture making the Town into one of Croatia‘s finest surviving fortified medieval towns.

Beside the Walls, medieval fortifications of the Town include: Zakerjan Tower, Kanavelic Tower, Sea Gate Tower ,Small Governor’s Tower , Large Governor’s Tower , Revelin Tower, All Saints Tower

History of Town Walls

The town’s fortifications were built to protect its citizens from attacks from the land as well as from the sea. The defensive walls that are surrounding the old town of Korcula are remains of the walls built in 13th and 14th century. Since then and up to the beginning of 18th century, the walls and towers were constantly being improved, strengthened and adjusted to the new weapons, combat and warfare. From the beginning of 18th century, diminished threats of war and change in the Town’s lifestyle were the reason these walls were slowly being neglected, so by the early 19th century large proportion of them were almost derelict. From that time on, on couple of the occasions local town authorities demolished parts of the walls – upper part of eastern walls (Zakerjan area) as well as part of the western walls (at Riva- Korcula port) – (see photo how eastern walls used to look). According to some historical documents, parts of the walls were demolished for the occasion of official visit by Franz Joseph I, the Emperor of Austro-Hungarian empire.

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