Kraljevica is a town in the Kvarner region of the country of Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

, located between Rijeka

Rijeka

Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...

 and Crikvenica

Crikvenica

Crikvenica is the largest settlement on the coast of the Vinodol coastal area, Croatia, and grew up on an area which was a settlement in the Roman era called Ad Turres. Population 7,121 , total municipality population 11,348 with 90% Croats...

, approximately thirty kilometers from Opatija

Opatija

Opatija is a town in western Croatia, just southwest of Rijeka on the Adriatic coast. , the town proper had a population of 7,850, with the municipality having a total 12,719 inhabitants.-Geography:...

 and near the entrance to the bridge to the island of Krk

Krk

Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county....

. Its population is 2,897 and a total of 4,579 in the municipality (2001), and it is administratively governed under the Rijeka civil authority.

History

Kraljevica is a town that was written about as early as the 13th century. Today, in addition to having the oldest shipyard

Kraljevica Shipyard

Kraljevica Shipyard is a shipbuilder at Kraljevica, on the Adriatic coast of Croatia. The shipyard was founded in 1729 and is claimed to be the oldest continuously operational shipyard in the world....

 on the Adriatic, Kraljevica's skyline is dominated by two medieval castles and a church of the Croatian nobles Zrinski

Zrinski

The Zrinski family was a Croatian noble family, influential during the period in history marked by the Ottoman wars in Europe in the Kingdom of Croatia and Hungary and in the later Austro-Hungarian Empire...

 and Frankopan

Frankopan

The Frankopans are a Croatian noble family. Also called Frankapan, Frangepán in Hungarian, and Frangipani in Italian.The Frankopan family is the leading princely Croatian aristocratic family which dates back to the 12th Century and even earlier to Roman times...

. Kraljevica's shipyard employed Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito

Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

, the former leader of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, during the first half of the 20th century in his early years of organizing for the Communist Party. After he became marshal of Yugoslavia following World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 the shipyard took his name, until democratic changes in the 1990s.

Today Kraljevica is also a popular tourist destination on the Adriatic coast. The Krk Bridge

Krk Bridge

Krk Bridge is a 1430 m long reinforced concrete arch bridge connecting the Croatian island of Krk to the mainland and carrying over a million vehicles per year. The longer of the bridge's two arches is the second longest concrete arch in the world and among the longest arches of any construction...

is located nearby, in the southeast part of the city.