Podgorica: history and heritage

About Podgorica: history and heritage

By the ULTIMATE Podgorica Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Podgorica stands on a plain where the Morača and the Ribnica meet, with three more rivers close by and Lake Skadar just to the south. It is the most modern of Balkan capitals in appearance, because most of the old town was destroyed in the Second World War, but its story runs back two thousand years, to the Roman city of Doclea on its northern edge.

At a glance

Names through history: Doclea (Roman), Ribnica (medieval), Podgorica, “under the hill”.

Peoples: Illyrian Docleatae, Romans, South Slavs, and today Montenegrins, Serbs, Albanians and Bosniaks.

A plain of five rivers, a Roman city at its edge and a capital that rebuilt itself from scratch.

Shaped by: Rome, medieval Duklja and Zeta, the Ottoman Empire (1474–1878), the Montenegrin principality and kingdom, Yugoslavia and, since 2006, independent Montenegro.

Geography: the Zeta plain where the Morača and the Ribnica meet, just north of Lake Skadar.

Podgorica today

Montenegro’s 2023 census counted 179,505 people in the Capital City of Podgorica, according to the statistical office Monstat: nearly 29 per cent of the country’s 623,633 people. Montenegrins and Serbs are the largest groups, with Albanian, Bosniak, Muslim by nationality and Roma communities; the municipality of Tuzi, to the south, is largely Albanian.

Roman Doclea

The Illyrian Docleatae gave their name to Doclea, a Roman town founded in the first century AD just north of today’s city, where the Zeta meets the Morača. Its forum, basilica, baths and temples are still being excavated, and you can walk among the ruins among the fields. The name lived on as Duklja, the early medieval Slavic state from which Montenegro traces its history.

Medieval Ribnica

In the Middle Ages a town called Ribnica stood where the Ribnica flows into the Morača, and by tradition Stefan Nemanja, founder of the medieval Serbian dynasty, was born here. The name Podgorica, “under the hill”, after Gorica hill, appears in records from the fourteenth century.

Ottoman Podgorica

The Ottomans took the town in 1474 and fortified it as a frontier post against the Montenegrin highlands. Its old quarter, Stara Varoš, with its narrow lanes, the Sahat kula clock tower and two mosques, still survives near the Ribnica, and Drpa Mandić Square marks the old town’s edge. After the Congress of Berlin in 1878 Podgorica became part of the Principality of Montenegro, whose royal capital remained Cetinje.

Rebuilt after 1945

Bombing in the Second World War destroyed most of the town. It was rebuilt as a modern city of wide streets and housing blocks, and in 1946 it became the capital of Montenegro in place of Cetinje, which remains the old royal capital and home to the national museums. The city was renamed that year, and took back its old name in 1992.

A modern capital

In 2006 Podgorica became the capital of an independent Montenegro. The Millennium Bridge over the Morača, a cable-stayed span opened in 2005, became the symbol of the new city, and the Moračica Bridge on the motorway north is one of the highest in Europe. The Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, with its gilded mosaics, the Montenegrin National Theatre and the Contemporary Art Centre in the Petrović Palace on the Ribnica make up the city’s cultural map, and the riverbanks, King’s Park and Gorica hill keep it green.

Our advice: walk from Stara Varoš and the clock tower along the Ribnica to the Millennium Bridge in the early evening, then drive half an hour south to Lake Skadar or north to the Morača canyon. Podgorica’s heritage is in its rivers as much as its buildings.

Sources

Population: Statistical Office of Montenegro (Monstat), 2023 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings. History: Capital City of Podgorica; National Tourism Organisation of Montenegro; Ministry of Culture of Montenegro (Doclea archaeological site); Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Podgorica”.

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