| Gospić | |
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| — Municipality and Town — | |
| Gospić | |
| The Gospić municipality within the Lika-Senj County | |
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Gospić
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Croatia |
| Region | Lika |
| County | Lika-Senj |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Milan Kolić (HDZ) |
| Population (2005) | |
| • Municipality | 12,980 |
| • Town | 5,795 |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+01) |
| Website | gospic.hr |
Gospić is a town in the mountainous and sparsely populated region of Lika, Croatia. It is the administrative centre of Lika-Senj county. Gospić is located near the Lika River in the middle of a karst field.
Gospić is the third smallest seat of a county government in Croatia. Its status as the county capital helped to spur some development in it, but the town as well as the entire region have suffered a constant decrease in population over the last several decades.
Contents |
29,049 total
In town: 9,025 total
12,980 total
The total population of the municipality is 12,729, divided into the following settlements:[2]
The first organized inhabitation of the area was recorded in 1263 as Kaseg or Kasezi. The name Gospić is first mentioned in 1604, which likely originates from the Croatian word for "lady" (gospa) or another archaic form, gospava.
Today's town was built around two Ottoman forts (the towers of Aga Senković and of Aga Alić). The Turkish incursion was repelled by the end of the 17th century and Gospić became an administrative centre of the Lika region within the Military Frontier.
The municipality was the birthplace of such great men as the physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla, pioneer in telegraphy Ferdinand Kovačević and also national thinkers like Ante Starčević.
In the 1990s, during the course of the Croatian War of Independence, Gospić suffered greatly. The town was held by Croatian government forces throughout the war, while the rebel Serb forces of the Republic of Serbian Krajina occupied positions directly to the east and often bombarded the town from there. Control of the area finally devolved to the Croatian government with the success of Operation Storm in August 1995.
Gospic is also the site of one of the regional branches of the Croatian State Archives, the Državni arhiv Gospić, at Kaniška 17. It was founded 30 September 1999 and officially opened 1 September 2000 in a renovated building and now houses historical documents of relevance to the Lika-Senj region which were formerly housed in the Regional Archive at Karlovac.
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