Stradun (street)

Stradun (pronounced [strǎduːn]) or Placa (Stradone or Corso) is the main street of Dubrovnik, Croatia. The limestone-paved pedestrian street runs some 300 metres through the Old Town, the historic part of the city surrounded by the Walls of Dubrovnik.

The site of the present-day street used to be a marshy channel which separated Ragusa from the forest settlement of Dubrava before it was reclaimed in the 13th century. Stradun stretches through the walled town in the east-west direction, connecting the western entrance called the "Pile Gate" (Vrata od Pila) to the "Ploče Gate" (Vrata od Ploča) on the eastern end. Both ends are also marked with 15th-century fountains (the so-called Large Onofrio's Fountain in the western section and the Small Onofrio's Fountain on the east end) and bell towers (the Dubrovnik Bell Tower to the east end and the bell tower attached to the Franciscan monastery to the west).

Stradun became the city's main thoroughfare in the 13th century, and its current appearance was for the most part created following the devastating 1667 earthquake in which most of the buildings in Ragusa (as Dubrovnik was called back then) were destroyed. Before the earthquake the houses which line the street were not so uniformly designed as they appear today, with many of them featuring arcades and elaborate decorations. Following the 1667 earthquake and a large fire which broke out immediately afterwards, the Republic of Ragusa passed a law which specified the layout of all future residential buildings constructed in the city.