Historical background to Pag
The name Pag was mentioned for the first time in the 10th century. In 976, the Croatian king Stjepan Držislav took Pag from the Byzantine authority.In 1244 Croatian-Hungarian king Béla IV granted Pag the status of a free royal town. In the battles against Zadar which took place in 1394 Pag suffered a heavy defeat and devastation.The inhabitants moved to a new location, where the present Pag was founded.The king Ladislav, in 1403, sold his share of Dalmatia, Pag included, to Venice and thus sentenced Pag to a centuries-long life under the Venetian rule. In 1433 Pag received the Town Statute.In the middle of the 15th century the inhabitants of Pag decided to build a new town. The construction works began, on 18th May 1443, on today’s location of the town. Juraj Dalmatinac, a great constructor and sculptor participated in the development of the urban plan of the new town.In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the town of Pag had 4700 inhabitants, many inhabitants emigrated, mostly to the USA, Canada and Australia. A concentration camp was set up on the island of Pag during World War II by the Croatian Ustaše puppet regime. Thanks to the bridge that connects it to the mainland on the south and a ferry line on the north of Pag, the only link between southern and northern Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991, was the island Pag.