The Most Beautiful Places in Croatia
22 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Croatia are Plitvice Lakes National Park, Walls of Dubrovnik and Zlatni Rat. The list covers 22 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Croatia's coast is a drowned limestone range. As the Dinaric Alps met the Adriatic, the sea flooded their valleys and left a long chain of islands and sheltered bays, while inland the karst dissolved into sinkholes, caves and travertine lakes. On this shore, Roman emperors, Venetian builders and the Republic of Ragusa each left cities of pale stone that still stand largely intact.
Rome is unusually present here. Diocletian's Palace in Split, built for the emperor's retirement around the turn of the fourth century, became the core of a living town, and the Pula Arena is one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres anywhere. In Poreč, the Euphrasian Basilica keeps its sixth-century mosaics. Later centuries added Trogir Cathedral, with Master Radovan's carved portal, and Šibenik Cathedral, a Renaissance church built entirely of stone, with a frieze of carved heads around its apse.
Dubrovnik is the great walled city of the Adriatic: its Walls ring the old town, the limestone-paved Stradun runs through its centre, and the fortress of Lovrijenac stands on a sea cliff just outside. Inland, Plitvice Lakes descend in a staircase of turquoise pools separated by travertine barriers and waterfalls, and near Imotski the Red Lake fills one of the deepest sinkholes in Europe. On Brač, Zlatni Rat is a pebble spit that shifts with wind and current, and on Biševo the Blue Grotto glows with light entering beneath the water.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plitvice Lakes National Park | National park | ✓ |
| 2 | Walls of Dubrovnik | City walls | |
| 3 | Zlatni Rat | Beach | |
| 4 | Diocletian's Palace | Palace | ✓ |
| 5 | Skradinski Buk, Krka National Park | Waterfall | |
| 6 | Stiniva | Beach | |
| 7 | Euphrasian Basilica | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 8 | Trakošćan Castle | Manor house | |
| 9 | Lovrijenac | Fortress | |
| 10 | Stradun, Dubrovnik | Pedestrian street | |
| 11 | Pula Arena | Amphitheatre | |
| 12 | Trogir Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 13 | Red Lake (Imotski) | Doline | |
| 14 | Šibenik Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 15 | Blue Grotto, Biševo | Show cave | |
| 16 | Sea organ | Sculpture | |
| 17 | Church of St. Donatus | Church building | |
| 18 | Stone Flower | War memorial | |
| 19 | Mirogoj Cemetery | Cemetery | |
| 20 | Monument to the Revolution of the people of Moslavina | War memorial | |
| 21 | Walls of Ston | City walls | |
| 22 | St. Nicholas Fortress | Fortress | ✓ |
01 Plitvice Lakes National Park
Nacionalni park Plitvička jezera
Croatia44.880° N 15.616° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by Hobbyfotography from Pixabay The barriers that create Plitvice's sixteen terraced lakes are, in a very real sense, alive — or at least built by living things. As water flows over limestone, it releases dissolved carbon dioxide, which shifts the water's chemistry so that calcium carbonate starts crystallising out of solution.
Did you know? Kozjak, the largest lake, is 47 metres deep, while Prošćansko, the highest of the large lakes, reaches 37 metres.
02 Walls of Dubrovnik
Dubrovačke gradske zidine
Croatia · 2.7 km from Dubrovnik42.640° N 18.108° E
Image by fjaka from Pixabay Few cities are as completely held by their fortifications as Dubrovnik. A continuous ring of stone, close to two kilometres long, wraps the entire old town, rising in places to about 25 metres and swelling to four to six metres thick on the landward side, where attack was most feared.
Did you know? The circuit, about 1,940 metres long, is reinforced by three round and 14 square towers, five bastions, two corner fortifications and St John's Fortress.
03 Zlatni Rat
Zlatni rat
Croatia · 32.3 km from Split43.256° N 16.634° E
Miran Hojnik · CC BY 2.0 Zlatni Rat, the "Golden Cape", is a tongue of fine pebbles that runs out from the southern coast of the island of Brač into the Hvar Channel, about two kilometres west of the harbour town of Bol.
Did you know? The sea on the western side is usually the warmer one, even though that side takes most of the afternoon wind and waves.
04 Diocletian's Palace
Dioklecijanova palača
Croatia · 2.9 km from Split43.508° N 16.438° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by neufal54 from Pixabay Diocletian, the emperor who divided power among four rulers and then did something rare for a Roman emperor — abdicated, in 305 — chose a peninsula on the Dalmatian coast for his retirement, a few kilometres from Salona, the provincial capital.
Did you know? The four main gates are known as the Golden, Silver, Iron and Bronze Gates, facing north, east, west and the sea.
05 Skradinski Buk, Krka National Park
Skradinski buk
Croatia · 9.9 km from Šibenik43.806° N 15.963° E
Image by fjaka from Pixabay Skradinski buk is the last and largest of the Krka's great falls, the place where the river, after a long run through a limestone canyon in Dalmatia, tumbles down a staircase of travertine before settling into the calm estuary below Skradin.
Did you know? Its two generators, made by the Hungarian firm Ganz, each produced 550 kilowatts of alternating current at an unusual frequency of 42 Hz.
06 Stiniva
Croatia43.018° N 16.171° E
dronepicr · CC BY 2.0 Stiniva is a hidden cove on the south coast of the Croatian island of Vis, closed off from the open Adriatic by two vertical limestone walls about thirty metres high that stand only some four metres apart.
Did you know? The Vis archipelago also includes the volcanic islet of Brusnik, whose name comes from the whetstones once made from its rock.
07 Euphrasian Basilica
Eufrazijeva bazilika
Croatia45.229° N 13.594° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Tiefkuehlfan · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, on the western coast of Istria, is one of the best-preserved early Christian church complexes anywhere, and it is famous for its sixth-century mosaics.
Did you know? Christ on the triumphal arch holds a book open at the Latin words meaning "I am the true light".
08 Trakošćan Castle
Trakošćan
Croatia · 38.9 km from Maribor46.259° N 15.950° E
Image by FilipFilipovic from Pixabay Trakošćan rises on a wooded hilltop in Croatia's far north, its white towers and battlements reflected in the lake at its foot.
Did you know? The Romantic park around the castle and lake was laid out with the landscape designer Franz Riesig (1814–1896).
09 Lovrijenac
Croatia · 2.5 km from Dubrovnik42.641° N 18.104° E
Image by zrnozob from Pixabay Fort Lovrijenac, the fortress of St Lawrence, stands on a sheer rock 37 metres above the sea just outside Dubrovnik's western walls, and it earned the nickname "Dubrovnik's Gibraltar". From this perch it commands both the approach by sea and the land road to the Pile Gate.
Did you know? Alongside the Lizard the fort held three cannon signed by the gunfounder Baptista of Rab, dated 1531, 1532 and 1536.
10 Stradun, Dubrovnik
Stradun
Croatia · 2.6 km from Dubrovnik42.641° N 18.108° E
László Szalai (Beyond silence) · CC BY-SA 3.0 Stradun is only about 300 metres long, yet it holds the whole of Dubrovnik in one straight line.
Did you know? The 1667 earthquake that led to the street's rebuilding killed some 5,000 people and was followed immediately by a great fire.
11 Pula Arena
Amfiteatar u Puli
Croatia · 0.5 km from Pula44.873° N 13.850° E
Image by alexman89 from Pixabay The amphitheatre at Pula is the great surprise of the Istrian coast: a Roman arena whose outer ring survives almost complete, its arches opening onto the harbour and the sky.
Did you know? Spectators were shaded by velaria, huge cloth awnings hung on wooden masts that passed through openings in the stone cornice.
12 Trogir Cathedral
Trogirska katedrala
Croatia · 17.7 km from Split43.517° N 16.251° E
VitVit · CC BY-SA 4.0 The great west door of Trogir Cathedral is signed: in 1240 a local sculptor named Radovan carved his name in the lunette, together with an inscription naming him the best in his craft.
Did you know? The octagonal pulpit rests on columns with Romanesque capitals, partly gilded.
13 Red Lake (Imotski)
Crveno jezero
Croatia43.455° N 17.198° E
Peter1936F · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Red Lake is not so much a lake as a hole in the earth with water at the bottom. It fills a vast collapse sinkhole on the edge of Imotski in inland Dalmatia, where the roof of an enormous cave gave way and left a shaft with sheer walls.
Did you know? Because the shaft is so hard to reach, the first depth soundings were taken only in 1955, by Milivoj Petrik.
14 Šibenik Cathedral
Katedrala sv. Jakova u Šibeniku
Croatia · 1.6 km from Šibenik43.736° N 15.889° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Huche from Pixabay The Cathedral of St James in Šibenik is one of the most remarkable buildings of the Adriatic: a church raised entirely of stone, whose vaults, dome and even roof are made of precisely cut slabs that lock into one another with joints more like those of carpentry than masonry.
Did you know? On the Lion Portal, the statue of Eve has a navel, a detail visitors often point out since she was created from Adam's rib.
15 Blue Grotto, Biševo
Modra špilja
Croatia42.980° N 16.021° E
Pierre-Selim Huard · CC BY 4.0 On the east side of Biševo, a small island off Vis in the outer Dalmatian archipelago, a sea cave lights up blue for about an hour around midday.
Did you know? The cave is protected in Croatia as a geomorphological monument of nature, a textbook example of a karst sea cave.
16 Sea organ
Morske orgulje
Croatia · 3.4 km from Zadar44.117° N 15.220° E
Image by IvanVuksa from Pixabay At the western tip of Zadar's old town peninsula, broad white stone steps lead down into the Adriatic, and from slits along their top comes a low, shifting music: the sound of the sea itself.
Did you know? Besides the architect and the acoustician, the hydraulic engineer Vladimir Andročec helped work out how the waves would drive the air.
17 Church of St. Donatus
Crkva sv. Donata u Zadru
Croatia · 3.1 km from Zadar44.116° N 15.224° E
Pudelek (Marcin Szala) · CC BY-SA 3.0 A tall cylinder of pale stone standing in the middle of what was once Zadar's Roman forum, the Church of St. Donatus is the largest pre-Romanesque building in Croatia and the emblem of the old town.
Did you know? Bishop Donatus was a diplomat who represented the Dalmatian cities before Charlemagne, recorded in Frankish annals in 805, which may explain the echoes of Aachen.
18 Stone Flower
Kameni cvijet
Croatia · 37.9 km from Prijedor45.280° N 16.928° E
Bobonajbolji · CC BY-SA 4.0 On open ground near the Sava river, a single concrete form opens towards the sky.
Did you know? Visitors reach the monument along a raised path that runs between two small lakes fed by backwaters of the Sava.
19 Mirogoj Cemetery
Mirogoj
Croatia · 2.3 km from Zagreb45.836° N 15.984° E
Image by GoranH from Pixabay Mirogoj is less a cemetery on the edge of Zagreb than a walled city of the dead laid out as a park.
Did you know? Bollé built the arcades of brick on stone foundations but used then-modern steel and reinforced concrete, and roofed the domes in copper.
20 Monument to the Revolution of the people of Moslavina
Spomenik revolucije naroda Moslavine
Croatia45.641° N 16.778° E
Plamen at Serbian Wikipedia · Public domain On a wooded slope of Moslavačka gora, the low range of hills east of Zagreb, a huge abstract form in concrete seems to hover above the grass: a central body with ribbed arms flung out horizontally to either side, two on one wing and three on the other, like a bird or a winged figure caught at the moment of take-off.
Did you know? Džamonja's own open-air sculpture park near Vrsar on the Istrian coast displays his works among the trees.
More about Monument to the Revolution of the people of Moslavina →
21 Walls of Ston
Stonske zidine
Croatia · 37.8 km from Dubrovnik42.838° N 17.697° E
Jules Verne Times Two · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Walls of Ston are one of the longest fortification systems ever built in Europe — originally more than 7 km of wall, towers and forts thrown across the narrow neck of the Pelješac peninsula in southern Dalmatia.
Did you know? At their height the fortifications counted 10 round towers, 31 square towers and 6 semicircular bastions.
22 St. Nicholas Fortress
Utvrda sv. Nikole
Croatia · 4.2 km from Šibenik43.722° N 15.855° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Sopina Ana · CC BY-SA 4.0 St. Nicholas Fortress sits almost in the sea at the entrance to the St. Anthony Channel, the narrow waterway that is the only sea approach to Šibenik. After the Ottomans took nearby Skradin and threatened to gain an outlet to the coast, Venice decided to close the channel.
Did you know? According to an anecdote, its only shot fired in anger, at Spanish ships near Zlarin, fell a few metres away because the damp wooden gun carriage gave way.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Croatia?
- On our list, Plitvice Lakes National Park ranks first, followed by Walls of Dubrovnik and Zlatni Rat.
- How were the Plitvice Lakes formed?
- Water rich in dissolved limestone deposits travertine, helped by mosses and algae, building natural dams between the lakes. The barriers keep growing, so the lakes and waterfalls slowly change over time.
- What is Diocletian's Palace?
- It is the fortified residence built for the Roman emperor Diocletian around 300 AD on the coast at Split. After the empire fell, people settled inside its walls, and today it forms the heart of Split's old town.
- Why is the Red Lake near Imotski called red?
- The lake fills a deep sinkhole whose cliffs are stained reddish-brown by iron oxides. It is one of the deepest sinkholes in Europe, with water reaching down far below the surface.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Croatia?
- In our collection, the places in Croatia are most often churches (3), cathedrals (3), waterfalls (2) and beaches (2).
- How many places are on this list in Croatia?
- The list covers 22 places.