Rijeka, Croatia
Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia (after Zagreb and Split). It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea. The metropolitan area, which includes adjacent towns and municipalities, has a population of more than 240,000. In 2016, Rijeka was selected as the European Capital of Culture for 2020, alongside Galway, Ireland. Historically, because of its strategic position and its excellent deep-water port, the city was fiercely contested, especially among Italy, Hungary (serving as the Kingdom of Hungary's largest and most important port), and Croatia, changing hands and demographics many times over centuries. According to the 2011 census data, the overwhelming majority of its citizens (82.52%) are presently Croats, along with small numbers of Bosniaks, Italians and Serbs. Rijeka is the main city of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County. The city's economy largely depends on shipbuilding (shipyards "3. Maj" and "Viktor Lenac Shipyard") and maritime transport. Rijeka hosts the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc, first built in 1765, as well as the University of Rijeka, founded in 1973 but with roots dating back to 1632 School of Theology. Linguistically, apart from Croatian, the population also uses its own unique dialect of the Venetian language, Fiumano, with an estimated 20,000 speakers among the autochthonous Croats and various minorities. Historically Fiumano served as a lingua franca for the many ethnicities inhabiting the multicultural port-town. More information is available on Wikipedia
This week our tour around the world stops over the city of Rijeka (Italian Fiume), a city in north-west Croatia, and a seaport on the Gulf of Kvarner, which is an inlet of the Adriatic Sea. Its major industries include shipbuilding, oil refining, woodworking, metalworking, and the manufacture of machinery, chemicals, and tobacco and leather products. The castle of Tvsat and the cathedral, construction of which was begun in the late 14th century, are prominent landmarks in the city. The city is also home to the University of Rijeka (1873). In early times Rijeka was part of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1471 it became part of Austria, and in 1779 it was attached to Hungary. After World War I a dispute broke out between Italy and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) over the disposition of Rijeka. During the peace conference of 1919, the Italian soldier-poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, at the head of a band of Italian legionaries, seized Rijeka. He and his men occupied the city until November 1920, when Rijeka was made a free state by the Treaty of Rapallo between Italy and the Yugoslav kingdom. A new treaty, signed at Rome in 1924, awarded the city and district to Italy, leaving the suburb of Sušak to the Yugoslavs. Rijeka remained under Italian control until 1945, when it was ceded by Yugoslav partisans. In 1947 Rijeka was formally ceded to Yugoslavia. In 1991 Croatia, once a constituent republic of Yugoslavia, declared its independence. Also for these images acquired by the Landsat 5 and 8 satellites with a time window (before/after) of thirty-two years, we want to show how the city has changed during this time, with new zone buildings especially in the north east of the old town. Another aim of these images is to promote the opportunity to download Landsat data through the ESA portals, where images captured every day are made available in near real time to the users and the scientific community. Landsat full resolution data products are freely available for immediate download at:  View Landsat 5 TM high resolution image (JPG 1.7 MB) View Landsat 8 OLI high resolution image (JPG 1.4 MB)
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