KOTOR

Italian Cattaro, walled town, seaport, and resort at the south end of Kotor Bay, one of four bays comprising the Gulf of Kotor (Boka Kotorska), on the Adriatic coastline of Montenegro, Yugoslavia. The town lies at the foot of the sheer Lovcen massif, rising to 5,738 ft (1,749 m). Kotor was founded by the ancient Romans as Acruvium. In the 10th century it was an autonomous city ruled from Byzantium, and from 1186 to 1371 it was a free city of medieval Serbia. It was Venetian and Hungarian for brief periods, an independent republic from 1395 to 1420, and then again Venetian until 1797. The town suffered periodic damage from Turkish assaults and from earthquakes. French occupation in 180714 was followed by Austrian domination until 1918; in that year Slav sailors in the Austro-Hungarian navy mutinied at Kotor. Also in 1918, the town became part of Yugoslavia. Kotor has many historic buildings, the largest and most beautiful of which is the 12th-century St. Tryphon Cathedral. An industrial suburb, kaljari, has soap and ball-bearing factories, and a naval academy is nearby. The oldest town in Montenegro, Kotor is now a state-protected historical monument. In 1979 a major earthquake seriously damaged the town. Pop. (1981) 5,345.