Three Croatian urban towns and one historical architectural complex have the status of the Monuments of World Cultural Heritage given them by UNESCO. These are the late antique Diocletian Palace (beginning of the 4th century), the historic core of which has been transformed through the centuries into medieval Split, the Basilica of St. Euphrasius from the 6th century in Porec and the cities of Dubrovnik and Trogir.

SPLIT is unique in the world because of the harmonious way by which the annexes and partitioning of later centuries have transformed the ancient Emperor's palace into a city. This is exemplified by the Peristil, where within roman columnes and arcades, facades of the Romanesque and the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque houses and palaces were built. Other modifications over the centuries turned the Diocletian's octagonal mausoleum into a cathedral in which many works of art from the Romanesque to Baroque periods were added, including a Romanesque bell tower, which gives the city a vertical axis.

DUBROVNIK, the capital of a free Croatian state from the 14th to the beginning of the 19th century, the Dubrovnik Republic, was once, with its merchant fleet and diplomacy, the only worthy rival of Venice on the Adriatic. (Napoleon abolished both, the Venetian Republic in 1792, and the Dubrovnik Republic in 1806) Dubrovnik, built as a planned city in the 13th century, with its well-preserved city walls and towers (built from the 14th to the 16th centuries), has numerous renowned public buildings, including Divona, the Mint, the Rector's palace, churches, houses and palaces. It has a unique image that can be compared to that of Venice or Amsterdam.

POREC, on the west coast of Istria, was an ideal peninsula for settlement because it is protected on three sides by the sea, making it easy to defend from the mainland. The Romans built the town in the 2nd century with a regular system of streets which intersect at right angles - cardo and decumanus - framing the "islands" of houses (insulae). That spatial arrangement is still maintained today. The most significant monument in Porec is the basilical complex of the Bishop Euphrasius, (6th century), which includes the Baptisterium, the Atrium, the Bishop's palace and the three-aisled Basilica, with exquisitely preserved early byzantine wall-mosaics of the highest quality, comparable only with the famous mosaics of Ravenna. A series of Romanesque houses and the spacious Canon's residence (13th century) are all preserved, as well a great number of Gothic and Renaissance houses.

TROGIR is built on an island and is connected to the mainland and the neighbouring island Ciovo by bridges. The Greeks founded the city in the 400 B.C., the Romans built it, but its present form was shaped during the Romanesque period in the 13th century. There we can find numerous Romanesque homes and the monumental Cathedral, with the largest and the most beautiful Romanesque portal along the Adriatic coast, work of Master Radovan from 1240. Next to the Cathedral are the 15th century annexes, a Gothic-Renaissance Baptisterium by Alesi and the Renaissance Chapel of the blessed John of Trogir by Alesi and Firentinac from 1468. With its 150 human figures and heads, mostly children's, carved in stone, the Chapel is the most significant gallery of sculpture and reliefs of the early Renaissance humanism. On the opposite side of the square is the Municipal lodge, used as a courthouse in the Middle Ages, complete with a Renaissance "Altar of Justice", with a carved series of stone reliefs by Alesi and Firentinac from 1471. All this, as well as other monuments, such as the Cipiko palace, makes Trogir a focal point of early Renaissance in Europe, where one can find 15th century Renaissance architecture, since in the rest of Europe (with the exception of Italy) Renaissance led the way only in the 16th century.