RAGUSA, ra-goo'sa (Slavic, Dunamic), a seaport town of southern Dalmatia, Jugo Slavia, on the Adriatic. It lies at the foot and on the slopes of Monte San Sergio and its streets rise in terraces from the Corso, the principal thoroughfare, which traverses the centre of the city. There are old walls flanked with towers and a fort erected during the French occupation in the beginning of the 19th century. Among the notable public buildings are the cathedral dating from the first years of the 18th century; the new Greek church; the older churches of the Franciscans, Domini cans and Jesuits; the town-hall, anciently the governmental palace, completed in the early part of the 15th century after nearly 100 years in building, and forming a magnificent example of the Gothic-Venetian style; and the Dogona, of the same architectural type. The industrial in terests of the town comprise chiefly manufac tures of silk, leather and liqueurs. The coast ing trade is important, but owing to the shallow ness of the harbor, centres chiefly at Gravosa, some four miles to the north. The population is about 14,291. Ragusa was founded in
the 7th century by refugees from the ancient Epidaurus, now known as Ragusa Vecchia, when that city was destroyed by the Slays. Ruled in turn by 'the Eyzantines, the Venetians and the Hungarians, it acquired in the 13th and 14th centuries, through trade and unscrupulous diplomacy, lordship over a territory of some 750 square miles and maintained its existence as an aristocratic republic, paying tribute, after 1440, to the Turks. The prosperity of the town was -undermined by several epidemics in the 16th century and by repeated earthquakes of which that of 1667 was the most disastrous. In 1806 Ragusa as occupied by the French, two years later the republican form of govern ment was abolished, and in 1809, with the rest of Dalmatia, it as annexed to the Illyrian kingdom. In 1L11 it passed to Austria. The see of Ragusa was founded in 980, and from 1121 to 1831 it was•the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop. Under the European Peace Treaty of 1919, Ragusa passed from Austria to the new ,republic of Jugo-Slavia.